Related papers: Fuzzball Shadows: Emergent Horizons from Microstru…
We give a broad conceptual review of what we have learned about black holes and their microstate structure from the study of microstate geometries and their string theory limits. We draw upon general relativity, supergravity, string theory…
It has been suggested by A. Sen that the entropy of two-charge supersymmetric bound states in string theory should be accounted for by adding the entropy of source-free horizonless supergravity solutions to the entropy associated with the…
In recent years we have come to understand how the information paradox is resolved in string theory. The huge entropy $S_{bek}={A\over 4G}$ of black holes is realized by an explicit set of horizon sized `fuzzball' wavefunctions. The…
It is conventionally believed that if a ball of matter of mass $M$ has a radius close to $2GM$ then it must collapse to a black hole. But string theory microstates (fuzzballs) have no horizon or singularity, and they do {\it not} collapse.…
There may exist extended configurations in the dark matter sector that are analogues of structures in the visible sector. In this work, we explore non-topological solitonic configurations, specifically Q-balls, and study when they may form…
The thermodynamic properties of black holes -- temperature, entropy and radiation rates -- are usually associated with the presence of a horizon. We argue that any Extremely Compact Object (ECO) must have the {\it same} thermodynamic…
We consider the quantum dynamics of gravitational collapse in a model in which the wave function spreads out over a large ensemble of geometries as envisioned in the fuzzball proposal. We show that the probabilities of coarse-grained…
The black hole information paradox is really a combination of two problems: the causality paradox and the entanglement problem. The causality paradox arises because in the semiclassical approximation infalling matter gets causally trapped…
Recent investigations of the pseudospectrum in black hole spacetimes have shown that quasinormal mode frequencies suffer from spectral instabilities. This phenomenon may severely affect gravitational-wave spectroscopy and limit precision…
An extremely compact object (ECO) is defined as a quantum object without horizon, whose radius is just a small distance $s$ outside its Schwarzschild radius. We show that any ECO of mass $M$ in $d+1$ dimensions with $s\ll…
We comment on a recent paper of Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski and Sully who argue against black hole complementarity based on the claim that an infalling observer 'burns' as he approaches the horizon. We show that in fact measurements made…
Collapsing shells form horizons, and when the curvature is small classical general relativity is believed to describe this process arbitrarily well. On the other hand, quantum information theory based (fuzzball/firewall) arguments suggest…
Black holes have the peculiar and intriguing property of having an event horizon, a one-way membrane causally separating their internal region from the rest of the Universe. Today astrophysical observations provide some evidence for the…
Dark gauge sectors and axions are well-motivated in string theory. We demonstrate that if a confining gauge sector gives rise to dark glueballs that are a fraction of the dark matter, and the associated axion has a decay constant near the…
At high energy densities, fivebranes are populated by a Hagedorn phase of so-called "little strings", whose statistical mechanics underlies black fivebrane thermodynamics. A particular limit of this phase yields BTZ black holes in $AdS_3$,…
We study photon geodesics in topological solitons that have the same asymptotic properties as Schwarzschild black holes. These are coherent states in string theory corresponding to pure deformations of spacetime through the dynamics of…
Horizons of black holes or cosmologies are peculiar loci of spacetime where interesting physical effects takes place, some of which are probed by recent (EHT and LIGO) and future experiments (ET and LISA). We discuss that there are boundary…
We study geometrical structures of charged static black holes in the five-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell theory. The black holes we study have horizons in the form of squashed $ {\rm S}^3$, and their asymptotic structure consists of a twisted…
This paper studies the interpretation of physics near a Schwarzschild black hole. A scenario for creation and growth is proposed that avoids the conundrum of information loss. In this picture the horizon recedes as it is approached and has…
Pushed by a number of advances, electromagnetic observatories have now reached the horizon scale of supermassive black holes. The existence and properties of horizons in our universe is one of the outstanding fundamental issues that can now…