Across-horizon scattering and information transfer

Abstract

We address the question whether or not two electrically charged elementary particles can Coulomb scatter if one of these particles is inside the Schwarzschild black-hole horizon and the other outside. It can be shown that the quantum process is consistent with the local energy–momentum conservation law. This result implies that across-horizon scattering is a physical effect, relevant to astrophysical black holes. We propose a Gedankenexperiment which uses the quantum scattering process to transfer information from inside the black-hole horizon to outside.