Tunneling between multiple histories as a solution to the information loss paradox

Program Document ·

OSTI ID:1874050

Chen, Pisin ^[1]

---

1. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States), Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC)

The information loss paradox associated with black hole Hawking evaporation is an unresolved problem in modern theoretical physics. In a recent brief essay, we revisited the the evolution of the black hole entanglement entropy via the Euclidean path integral (EPI) of the quantum state and allow for the branching of semi-classical histories along the Lorentzian evolution. We posited that there exist at least two histories that contribute to EPI, where one is an information-losing history while the other is information-preserving. At early times, the former dominates EPI, while at late times the latter becomes dominant. By so doing we recovered the essence of the Page curve and thus the unitarity, albeit with the turning point, i.e., the Page time, much shifted toward the late time. In this full-length paper, we fill in the details of our arguments and calculations to strengthen our notion. One implication of this modified Page curve is that the entropy bound may thus be violated. We comment on the similarity and difference between our approach and that of the replica wormholes and the islands conjectures.

• Research Organization: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States), KIPAC
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76SF00515
• OSTI ID: 1874050
• Report Number(s): YITP-22-65
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English