Related papers: Strings, Black Holes and Lorentz Contraction
We give some examples in which neglecting the interactions between particles or truncating the description of a black hole to the spherically symmetric mode leads to unphysical results. The restoration of the interactions and higher angular…
Quantum aspects of black holes represent an important testing ground for a theory of quantum gravity. The recent success of string theory in reproducing the Bekenstein-Hawking black hole entropy formula provides a link between general…
It has been argued that the consistency of quantum theory with black hole physics requires nonlocality not present in ordinary effective field theory. We examine the extent to which such nonlocal effects show up in the perturbative S-matrix…
String theory provides an example of the kind of apparent inconsistency that the {\it Principle of Black Hole Complementarity\/} deals with. To a freely infalling observer a string falling through a black hole horizon appears to be a Planck…
We observe that the existence of black holes limits the extent to which M Theory (or indeed any quantum theory of gravity) can be described by conventional quantum mechanics. Although there is no contradiction with the fundamental…
This paper reviews the role of black holes in the context of fundamental physics. After recalling some basic results stemming from Planckian string calculations, I present three examples of how stringy effects can improve the curvature…
We point out that the celebrated Hawking effect of quantum instability of black holes seems to be related to a nonperturbative effect in string theory. Studying quantum dynamics of strings in the gravitational background of black holes we…
The transition between (non supersymmetric) quantum string states and Schwarzschild black holes is discussed. This transition occurs when the string coupling $g^2$ (which determines Newton's constant) increases beyond a certain critical…
The statistical mechanics of black holes arbitrarily far from extremality is modeled by a gas of weakly interacting strings. As an effective low energy description of black holes the model provides a number of highly non-trivial consistency…
We argue that the light particles in string theory obey an effective quantum mechanics modified by the inclusion of a quantum-gravitational friction term, induced by unavoidable couplings to unobserved massive string states in the…
Black holes are a continuing source of mystery. Although their classical properties have been understood since the 1970's, their quantum properties raise some of the deepest questions in theoretical physics. Some of these questions have…
String theory suggests modifications of our spacetime such as extra dimensions and the existence of a mininal length scale. In models with addidional dimensions, the Planck scale can be lowered to values accessible by future colliders.…
In these lectures we review the quantum physics of large Schwarzschild black holes. Hawking's information paradox, the theory of the stretched horizon and the principle of black hole complementarity are covered. We then discuss how the…
We review recent progress in our understanding of the physics of black holes. In particular, we discuss the ideas from string theory that explain the entropy of black holes from a counting of microstates of the hole, and the related…
String theory is a promising candidate for a fundamental quantum theory of all interactions including Einstein gravity. Some solutions in string theory can be interpreted as black holes. Using the semi-analytic method and WKB method,the…
The modeling of black holes is an important desideratum for any quantum theory of gravity. Not only is a classical black hole metric sought, but also agreement with the laws of black hole thermodynamics. In this paper, we describe how these…
For most black holes in string theory, the Schwarzschild radius in string units decreases as the string coupling is reduced. We formulate a correspondence principle, which states that (i) when the size of the horizon drops below the size of…
The correspondence principle between strings and black holes is a general framework for matching black holes and massive states of fundamental strings at a point where their physical properties (such as mass, entropy and temperature)…
Computations in the calculable small coupling regime of string theories and the general consensus that no new physics has to be invoked in continuing to the large coupling (black hole) regime, suggest the following picture. Quantum states…
We propose a quantum gravity-extended form of the classical length contraction law obtained in Special Relativity. More specifically, the framework of our discussion is the UV self-complete theory of quantum gravity. Against this…