Self-similarity, conservation of entropy/bits and the black hole information puzzle

Abstract

John Wheeler coined the phrase "it from bit" or "bit from it" in the 1980s. However, much of the interest in the connection between information, i.e. "bits", and physical objects, i.e. "its", stems from the discovery that black holes have characteristics of thermodynamic systems having entropies and temperatures. This insight led to the information loss problem -- what happens to the "bits" when the black hole has evaporated away due to the energy loss from Hawking radiation? In this essay we speculate on a radical answer to this question using the assumption of self-similarity of quantum correction to the gravitational action and the requirement that the quantum corrected entropy be well behaved in the limit when the black hole mass goes to zero.

v1: 11 pages, LaTeX, awarded a Fourth Prize in the 2013 FQXi's Essay Contest "It From Bit, or Bit From It"; v2: a new paragraph added at the end of the manuscript, no change in physics, to appear in JHEP

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• Corrected entropy of BTZ black hole in tunneling approach
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• Insights and possible resolution to the information loss paradox via the tunneling picture
• Regular black holes in UV self-complete quantum gravity
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Cited by in corpus (10)

• The Effect of GUP to Massive Vector and Scalar Particles Tunneling From a Warped DGP Gravity Black Hole
• Quantum Tunneling and Quasinormal Modes in the Spacetime of Alcubierre Warp Drive
• Quantum-corrected two-dimensional Horava-Lifshitz black hole entropy
• Eruptive Massive Vector Particles of 5-Dimensional Kerr-Gödel Spacetime
• Thermodynamic phase transition based on the non-singular temperature
• Quantum Tunneling of Spin-1 Particles from a 5D Einstein-Yang-Mills-Gauss-Bonnet Black Hole Beyond Semiclassical Approximation
• Thermodynamic studies of Different Type of Black Holes: General Uncertainty Principle Approach
• Information-Probabilistic description of the Universe
• The information loss problem and Hawking radiation as tunneling
• Quantum black holes, partition of integers and self-similarity