Related papers: Can gravitational collapse and black-hole evaporat…
The formation and evaporation of a black hole can be viewed as a scattering process in Quantum Gravity. Semiclassical arguments indicate that the process should be non-unitary, and that all the information of the original quantum state…
A personal perspective on the black hole evaporation process is presented using as guidelines inputs from: (i) loop quantum gravity, (ii) simplified models where concrete results have been obtained, and, (iii) semi-classical quantum general…
Many discussion about the black hole conundrums, such as singularity and information loss, suggested that there must be some essential irreconcilable conflict between quantum theory and classical gravity theory, which cannot be solved with…
We propose that in quantum gravity one needs to impose a final state boundary condition at black hole singularities. This resolves the apparent contradiction between string theory and semiclassical arguments over whether black hole…
Usually quantum theory is formulated in terms of the evolution of states through spacelike surfaces. However, a generalization of this formulation is needed for field theory in spacetimes not foliable by spacelike surfaces, or in quantum…
A theory of quantum gravity is expected to change profoundly our understanding of black holes. Quantum theory has already shown, as a first approximation, that a black hole slowly evaporates. Non-perturbative quantum gravity also predicts…
Black hole evaporation is one of the most striking phenomena at the interface between gravity and quantum physics. In Hawking's semi-classical treatment, where matter is quantum mechanical and the spacetime is definite and classical,…
We consider the black hole information problem in an explicitly defined spacetime modelling black hole evaporation. Using this context we review basic aspects of the problem, with a particular effort to be unambiguous about subtle topics,…
A first-principles approach to the unitarity problem for black holes is systematically explored, based on the postulates of 1) quantum mechanics 2) the ability to approximately locally divide quantum gravitational systems into subsystems 3)…
Quantum mechanics for matter fields moving in an evaporating black hole spacetime is formulated in fully four-dimensional form according to the principles of generalized quantum theory. The resulting quantum theory cannot be expressed in a…
We present a model for studying the formation and evaporation of non-singular (quantum corrected) black holes. The model is based on a generalized form of the dimensionally reduced, spherically symmetric Einstein--Hilbert action and…
The global hyperbolicity assumption present in gravitational collapse singularity theorems is in tension with the quantum mechanical phenomenon of black hole evaporation. In this work I show that the causality conditions in Penrose's…
In a previous paper, we studied the interior solution of a collapsing body in a non-local theory of gravity super-renormalizable at the quantum level. We found that the classical singularity is replaced by a bounce, after which the body…
The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, we introduce the information loss problem; second, we provide a critical assessment by thoroughly inspecting the assumptions underlying its formulations. In particular, we argue that if we work in…
Unitarity demands that the black-hole final state (what remains inside the event horizon at complete evaporation) must be unique. Assuming a UV theory with infinitely many fields, we propose that the uniqueness of the final state can be…
Recently, several simple quantum mechanical toy models of black hole evaporation have appeared in the literature attempting to illuminate the black hole information paradox. We present a general class of models that is large enough to…
We describe a model for unitary black hole evaporation with no information loss in terms of a quantum computation. We assume that there is a fine tuned interaction between the qubits of the black hole Bell states which is the inverse of…
Unitary black hole evaporation necessarily involves a late-time superposition of decoherent states, including states describing distinct spacetimes (e.g., different center of mass trajectories of the black hole). Typical analyses of the…
Gravitational collapse into a black hole has been extensively studied with classical sources. We develop a new formalism to simulate quantum fields forming a black hole. This formalism utilizes well-established techniques used for classical…
The process of black hole evaporation resulting from the Hawking effect has generated an intense controversy regarding its potential conflict with quantum mechanics' unitary evolution. In a recent couple of works of a collaboration…