Related papers: The Planckian Conspiracy: String Theory and the Bl…
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…
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…
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…
Consistency of quantum mechanics in black hole physics requires unusual Lorentz transformation properties of the size and shape of physical systems with momentum beyond the Planck scale. A simple parton model illustrates the kind of…
Breakdown of local physics in string theory at distances longer than the string scale is investigated. Such nonlocality would be expected to be visible in ultrahigh-energy scattering. The results of various approaches to such scattering are…
The entropy and information puzzles arising from black holes cannot be resolved if quantum gravity effects remain confined to a microscopic scale. We use concrete computations in nonperturbative string theory to argue for three kinds of…
The incompatibility between gravity and quantum coherence represented by black holes should be solved by a consistent quantum theory that contains gravity as superstring theory. Despite many encouraging results in that sense, I question…
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…
We consider a thought experiment in which an energetic massless string probes a "stringhole" (a heavy string lying on the correspondence curve between strings and black holes) at large enough impact parameter for the regime to be under…
The perturbations of string-theoretic black holes are analyzed by generalizing the method of Chandrasekhar. Attention is focussed on the case of the recently considered charged string-theoretic black hole solutions as a representative…
We show that in string theory, due to non-perturbative effects, there are cases in which two states that semi-classically are completely different, are in fact the same. One state cannot be excited without exciting the other; they are two…
Is string theory relevant to the black hole information problem? This is an attempt to clarify some of the issues involved. Presented at Strings '95.
We briefly review the present status of string theory from the viewpoint of its implications on the short-distance space-time structure and black hole physics. Special emphases are given on two closely related issues in recent developments…
We consider modifications to general relativity due to non-local string effects by using perturbation theory about the 4-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole metric. In keeping with our interpretation in previous works of black holes as…
We consider modifications to general relativity by the non-local (classical and quantum) string effects for the case of a D-dimensional Scwarzschild black hole. The classical non-local effects do not alter the spacetime topology (the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…