Related papers: Nonviolent unitarization: basic postulates to soft…
Bringing gravity into a quantum-mechanical framework is likely the most profound remaining problem in fundamental physics. The "unitarity crisis" for black hole evolution appears to be a key facet of this problem, whose resolution will…
This contribution overviews the information paradox, or perhaps more aptly "unitarity crisis," and a proposed resolution called nonviolent unitarization. It begins by examining the conflict of principles that yields the crisis, which can be…
The unitary crisis for black holes indicates an apparent need to modify local quantum field theory. This paper explores the idea that quantum mechanics and in particular unitarity are fundamental principles, but at the price of familiar…
Quantum gravity is likely the deepest problem facing current physics. While traditionally associated with short distance nonrenormalizability, it is evident that the long distance problem of unitarity, arising at high energies with black…
String theory provides numerous examples of duality between gravitational theories and unitary gauge theories. To resolve the black hole information paradox in this setting, it is necessary to better understand how unitarity is implemented…
In approaches to quantum gravity, where smooth spacetime is an emergent approximation of a discrete Planckian fundamental structure, any effective smooth field theoretical description would miss part of the fundamental degrees of freedom…
If quantum mechanics governs nature, black holes must evolve unitarily, providing a powerful constraint on the dynamics of quantum gravity. Such evolution apparently must in particular be nonlocal, when described from the usual…
A candidate parameterization is introduced, in an effective field theory framework, for the quantum information transfer from a black hole that is necessary to restore unitarity. This in particular allows description of the effects of this…
I discuss features required for preserving unitarity in black hole decay and concepts underlying such a perspective. Unitarity requires that correlations extend on the scale of the horizon. I show, in a toy model inspired by string…
A general formulation of the basic conflict of the information problem is given, encapsulated in a "black hole theorem." This is framed in a more general context than the usual one of quantum field theory on a background, and is based on…
A succinct summary is given of the problem of reconciling observation of black hole-like objects with quantum mechanics. If quantum black holes behave like subsystems, and also decay, their information must be transferred to their…
A brief review of the confrontation between black hole physics and quantum-mechanical unitarity is presented. Possibile reconciliations are modifying the laws of physics to allow fundamental loss of information, escape of information during…
Unitarity is a pillar of quantum theory. Nevertheless, it is also a source of several of its conceptual problems. We note that in a world where measurements are relational, as is the case in gravitation, quantum mechanics exhibits a…
A quantum system with a black hole accommodates two widely different, though physically equivalent, descriptions. In one description, based on global spacetime of general relativity, the existence of the interior region is manifest, while…
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…
Thirty years of a deepening information paradox suggest the need to revise our basic physical framework. Multiple indicators point toward reassessment of the principle of locality: lack of a precise definition in quantum gravity, behavior…
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…
Quantum information transfer necessary to reconcile black hole evaporation with quantum mechanics, while approximately preserving regular near-horizon geometry, can be simply parameterized in terms of couplings of the black hole internal…
An approach to black hole quantization is proposed wherein it is assumed that quantum coherence is preserved. A consequence of this is that the Penrose diagram describing gravitational collapse will show the same topological structure as…
This note is to bring to the reader's attention the fact that general relativity and quantum mechanics differ from each other in one main aspect. General relativity is based on the diffeomorphism covariant formulation of the laws of physics…