Related papers: Quantum Harmonic Black Holes
Inspired by the recent conjecture that black holes are condensates of gravitons, we investigate a simple model for the black hole degrees of freedom that is consistent both from the point of view of Quantum mechanics and of General…
Black holes behave as thermodynamic systems, and a central task of any quantum theory of gravity is to explain these thermal properties. A statistical mechanical description of black hole entropy once seemed remote, but today we suffer an…
Black holes are more than just odd-looking curiosities in gravity theory. They uniquely intertwine the basic principles of General Relativity with those of Quantum Theory. Just by demanding that they nevertheless obey acceptable laws of…
To explain black hole thermodynamics in quantum gravity, one must introduce constraints to ensure that a black hole is actually present. I show that for a large class of black holes, such ``horizon constraints'' allow the use of conformal…
We propose a quantum description of black holes. The degrees of freedom to be quantized are identified with the microscopic degrees of freedom of the horizon, and their dynamics is governed by the action of the relatistic bosonic membrane…
We employ the recently proposed formalism of the "horizon wave-function" to investigate the emergence of a horizon in models of black holes as Bose-Einstein condensates of gravitons. We start from the Klein-Gordon equation for a massless…
Working in a semi-classical setting, we consider solutions of the Einstein equations that exhibit light trapping in finite time according to distant observers. In spherical symmetry, we construct near-horizon quantities from the assumption…
At the Planck scale the distinction between elementary particles and black holes becomes fuzzy. The very definition of a "quantum black hole" (QBH) is an open issue. Starting from the idea that, at the Planck scale, the radius of the event…
To derive black hole thermodynamics in any quantum theory of gravity, one must introduce constraints that ensure that a black hole is actually present. For a large class of black holes, the imposition of such ``horizon constraints'' allows…
In general relativity, the fields on a black hole horizon are obtained from those in the bulk by pullback and restriction. Similarly, in quantum gravity, the quantized horizon degrees of freedom should result from restricting, or…
We discuss the interior of a black hole in quantum gravity, in which black holes form and evaporate unitarily. The interior spacetime appears in the sense of complementarity because of special features revealed by the microscopic degrees of…
The quantum genesis of Hawking radiation is a long-standing puzzle in black hole physics. Semi-classically one can argue that the spectrum of radiation emitted by a black hole look very much sparse unlike what is expected from a thermal…
Black hole physics currently lacks a fully coherent understanding of the black hole mass (density), entropy, and interior (non-)singularity. These concepts are related to the black hole radius, area (of the horizon), and volume (within the…
Since Stephen Hawking discovered that black holes emit thermal radiation, black holes have become the theoretical laboratories for testing our ideas on quantum gravity. This dissertation is devoted to the study of singularities, the…
Quantum physics at scales large compared to the Planck scale is described in the framework of classical space-time geometries. A criterion for selecting these backgrounds out of quantized gravity is proposed. It leads to an instability of…
The gravitational force harbours a fundamental instability against collapse. In standard General Relativity without Quantum Mechanics, this implies the existence of black holes as natural, stable solutions of Einstein's equations. If one…
Astrophysical black hole candidates, although long thought to have a horizon, could be horizonless ultra-compact objects. This intriguing possibility is motivated by the black hole information paradox and a plausible fundamental connection…
It was recently shown that a black hole (or any Killing horizon) will decohere any quantum superposition in their vicinity. I review three distinct but equivalent arguments that illustrate how this phenomenon arises: (1) entanglement with…
Deviations from Hawking's thermal black hole spectrum, observable for macroscopic black holes, are derived from a model of a quantum horizon in loop quantum gravity. These arise from additional area eigenstates present in quantum surfaces…
We present an evidence, that the volumes of compactified spaces as well as the areas of black hole horizons must be quantized in Planck units. This quantization has phenomenological consequences, most dramatic being for micro black holes in…