skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Reanalyzing an evaporating black hole

Journal Article · · Physical Review. D.

A coherent picture of the quantum mechanics of a collapse-formed, evaporating black hole is presented. In a distant frame, semiclassical theory in the zone describes microscopic dynamics of only the "hard modes," the modes that are hard enough to be discriminated in the timescale of Hawking emission. The thermal nature of these modes arises from microcanonical typicality of the full black hole degrees of freedom, mostly composed of the "soft modes," the modes that cannot be discriminated at the semiclassical level. The hard modes are purified by a combined system of the soft modes and early Hawking radiation but not by either of them separately. This intrinsically tripartite structure of entanglement is general, regardless of the age of the black hole. The interior spacetime emerges only at a coarse-grained level. To describe it, an effective theory can be erected at each time, which applies only to a limited spacetime region determined by the time at which the theory is erected. The entire interior of the black hole can be described only using multiple effective theories erected at different times, realizing the idea of complementarity. We analyze the implications of the entanglement structure described here for various phenomena, including Hawking evaporation and general information retrieval. For multiple entangled black holes, it implies that semiclassical objects dropped into different black holes cannot meet in the interior, although each object smoothly enters the horizon of the black hole to which it is falling. We also discuss physics in Rindler space, elucidating how it is obtained as a smooth limit of the black hole physics.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); National Science Foundation (NSF); MEXT KAKENHI
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; SC0019380; PHY-1521446; 15H05895
OSTI ID:
1505670
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1604682
Journal Information:
Physical Review. D., Journal Name: Physical Review. D. Vol. 99 Journal Issue: 8; ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 19 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (71)

Information in black hole radiation journal December 1993
Tensile Strength and the Mining of Black Holes journal November 2013
The four laws of black hole mechanics journal June 1973
Violations of the Equivalence Principle by a Nonlocally Reconstructed Vacuum at the Black Hole Horizon journal January 2014
Black holes as mirrors: quantum information in random subsystems journal September 2007
Eternal black holes in anti-de Sitter journal April 2003
Black Hole Interior in Quantum Gravity journal May 2015
Boundary Unitarity and the Black hole Information Paradox journal October 2013
Black hole explosions? journal March 1974
Soft hair as a soft wig journal September 2017
An apologia for firewalls journal September 2013
Black holes, information, and Hilbert space for quantum gravity journal April 2013
Dressed Hard States and Black Hole Soft Hair journal November 2016
Gauge theory correlators from non-critical string theory journal May 1998
Black holes or firewalls: A theory of horizons journal October 2013
Black Holes Do Evaporate Thermally journal February 1981
Traversable wormholes via a double trace deformation journal December 2017
Breakdown of predictability in gravitational collapse journal November 1976
Entropy of a vacuum: What does the covariant entropy count? journal November 2014
An infalling observer in AdS/CFT journal October 2013
Fast scramblers journal October 2008
The string landscape, black holes and gravity as the weakest force journal June 2007
The large $N$ limit of superconformal field theories and supergravity journal January 1998
Remarks on the necessity and implications of state-dependence in the black hole interior journal April 2016
Bulk locality and quantum error correction in AdS/CFT journal April 2015
Anti de Sitter space and holography journal January 1998
Generalized second law of thermodynamics in black-hole physics journal June 1974
Gravitational waves in general relativity VIII. Waves in asymptotically flat space-time journal October 1962
Black holes, quantum information, and unitary evolution journal June 2012
Complementarity is not enough journal June 2013
Physical theories, eternal inflation, and the quantum universe journal November 2011
Acceleration radiation and the generalized second law of thermodynamics journal February 1982
Relativeness in quantum gravity: limitations and frame dependence of semiclassical descriptions journal April 2015
Is Black-Hole Evaporation Predictable? journal February 1980
Hawking radiation, the Stefan–Boltzmann law, and unitarization journal March 2016
Nonviolent unitarization: basic postulates to soft quantum structure of black holes journal December 2017
A note on (no) firewalls: the entropy argument journal July 2013
Why firewalls need not exist journal October 2016
Spacetime from unentanglement journal May 2018
Gauge-Gravity Duality and the Black Hole Interior journal October 2013
A bound on chaos journal August 2016
Particle emission rates from a black hole: Massless particles from an uncharged, nonrotating hole journal January 1976
A single quantum cannot be cloned journal October 1982
The stretched horizon and black hole complementarity journal October 1993
The world as a hologram journal November 1995
Path-integral derivation of black-hole radiance journal April 1976
Black holes: complementarity or firewalls? journal February 2013
Nonviolent nonlocality journal September 2013
Cool horizons for entangled black holes journal August 2013
The Large-N Limit of Superconformal Field Theories and Supergravity journal January 1999
State-dependent bulk-boundary maps and black hole complementarity journal April 2014
Black Holes and Entropy journal April 1973
Nonuniqueness of Canonical Field Quantization in Riemannian Space-Time journal May 1973
Thermo-field dynamics of black holes journal May 1976
Particle creation by black holes journal June 1976
Gravitational waves in general relativity, VII. Waves from axi-symmetric isolated system
  • Bondi, Hermann; Van der Burg, M. G. J.; Metzner, A. W. K.
  • Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Vol. 269, Issue 1336, p. 21-52 https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1962.0161
journal August 1962
Diving into traversable wormholes: Diving into traversable wormholes journal May 2017
Black holes and large N species solution to the hierarchy problem journal April 2010
A covariant entropy conjecture journal July 1999
Quantum computation vs. firewalls journal June 2013
Gedanken experiments involving black holes journal January 1994
What happens when an accelerating observer detects a Rindler particle journal March 1984
On the quantum structure of a black hole journal January 1985
Notes on black-hole evaporation journal August 1976
Scalar production in Schwarzschild and Rindler metrics journal April 1975
Particle creation by black holes journal August 1975
Black hole entanglement and quantum error correction journal October 2013
Nonviolent information transfer from black holes: A field theory parametrization journal July 2013
Black holes, entropies, and semiclassical spacetime in quantum gravity journal October 2014
Quantum information measures for restricted sets of observables journal August 2018
Pulling the boundary into the bulk journal July 2018

Similar Records

Interior of a unitarily evaporating black hole
Journal Article · Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Physical Review. D. · OSTI ID:1505670

Spacetime and universal soft modes: Black holes and beyond
Journal Article · Wed Mar 25 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Physical Review. D. · OSTI ID:1505670

Entanglement wedge reconstruction and the information paradox
Journal Article · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Journal of High Energy Physics (Online) · OSTI ID:1505670