A "black hole theorem," and its implications

Abstract

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 describing a black hole as a quantum subsystem of a larger system, including its environment. This sharpens the limited set of possible consistent options; as with the Coleman-Mandula theorem, the most important point is probably the loophole in the "theorem," and what this tells us about the fundamental structure of quantum gravity. This "theorem" in particular involves the general question of how to define quantum subsystems in quantum gravity. If black holes do behave as quantum subsystems, at least to a good approximation, evolve unitarily, and do not leave remnants, the "theorem" implies the presence of interactions between a black hole and its environment that go beyond a description based on local quantum fields. This provides further motivation for and connects to previous work giving a principled parameterization of these interactions, and investigating their possible observational signatures via electromagnetic or gravitational wave observations of black holes.

arXiv comment15 pages of text and figures + end material. v2: Sharpened arguments and motivation; to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravity

References in corpus (67)

• First M87 Event Horizon Telescope Results. I. The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
• Average Entropy of a Subsystem
• Black Holes: Complementarity or Firewalls?
• Cool horizons for entangled black holes
• Information in Black Hole Radiation
• Evanescent Black Holes
• Replica Wormholes and the Entropy of Hawking Radiation
• The fuzzball proposal for black holes: an elementary review
• Gravitational Vacuum Condensate Stars
• The entropy of bulk quantum fields and the entanglement wedge of an evaporating black hole
• The Page curve of Hawking radiation from semiclassical geometry
• Soft Hair on Black Holes
• The entropy of Hawking radiation
• Better Late than Never: Information Retrieval from Black Holes
• Superrotation Charge and Supertranslation Hair on Black Holes
• Transcending the ensemble: baby universes, spacetime wormholes, and the order and disorder of black hole information
• Planck stars
• Hawking radiation, the Stefan-Boltzmann law, and unitarization
• Black Holes and Massive Remnants
• White Holes as Remnants: A Surprising Scenario for the End of a Black Hole
• Diffeomorphism-invariant observables and their nonlocal algebra
• Observables, gravitational dressing, and obstructions to locality and subsystems
• Black Hole Entropy and Soft Hair
• Quantum Emission from Two-Dimensional Black Holes
• Black holes, quantum information, and unitary evolution
• The Holographic Nature of Null Infinity
• Unitarity and Holography in Gravitational Physics
• Nonviolent nonlocality
• Decoding the hologram: Scalar fields interacting with gravity
• Models for unitary black hole disintegration
• Possible observational windows for quantum effects from black holes
• Construction of Bulk Fields with Gauge Redundancy
• The black hole quantum atmosphere
• Nonviolent information transfer from black holes: a field theory parameterization
• The Information Paradox for Black Holes
• Do Black Holes Destroy Information?
• Event Horizon Telescope Observations as Probes for Quantum Structure of Astrophysical Black Holes
• Black hole unitarity and antipodal entanglement
• The Transfer of Entanglement: The Case for Firewalls
• Black Hole Evaporation along Macroscopic Strings
• How is quantum information localized in gravity?
• Nonviolent unitarization: basic postulates to soft quantum structure of black holes
• Trouble For Remnants
• Quantum information transfer and models for black hole mechanics
• Wormhole calculus, replicas, and entropies
• Astronomical tests for quantum black hole structure
• Holography from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation
• Gravitational dressing, soft charges, and perturbative gravitational splitting
• Why Aren't Black Holes Infinitely Produced?
• Gravitational splitting at first order: Quantum information localization in gravity
• Modulated Hawking radiation and a nonviolent channel for information release
• Gauge-invariant observables, gravitational dressings, and holography in AdS
• Quantum-first gravity
• Mining Energy from a Black Hole by Strings
• Effective field theory models for nonviolent information transfer from black holes
• Searching for quantum black hole structure with the Event Horizon Telescope
• Hilbert space structure in quantum gravity: an algebraic perspective
• The Page curve and baby universes
• Holographic Thought Experiments
• Holography without strings?
• Black holes in the quantum universe
• Quantum information/entanglement transfer rates between subsystems
• Schrödinger evolution of the Hawking state
• Holography and unitarity
• Quantum evolution of the Hawking state for black holes
• Schrödinger evolution of two-dimensional black holes
• Black Hole Information Revisited

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Visions in Quantum Gravity
• Perturbative quantum evolution of the gravitational state and dressing in general backgrounds
• On the Interaction between Ultralight Bosons and Quantum-Corrected Black Holes
• Einstein's equations and the pseudo-entropy of pseudo-Riemannian information manifolds
• Replica wormhole and AMPS firewall