Abstract
Recently, a coherent picture of the quantum mechanics of an evaporating black hole has been presented which reconciles unitarity with the predictions of the equivalence principle. The thermal nature of a black hole as viewed in a distant reference frame arises from entanglement between the hard and soft modes, generated by the chaotic dynamics at the string scale. In this paper, we elaborate on this picture, particularly emphasizing the importance of the chaotic nature of the string (UV) dynamics across all low energy species in generating large (IR) spacetime behind the horizon. Implications of this UV/IR relation include O(1) breaking of global symmetries at the string scale and a self-repair mechanism of black holes restoring the smoothness of their horizons. We also generalize the framework to other systems, including Rindler, de Sitter, and asymptotically flat spacetimes, and find a consistent picture in each case. Finally, we discuss the origin of the particular construction adopted in describing the black hole interior as well as the outside of a de Sitter horizon. We argue that the construction is selected by the quantum-to-classical transition, in particular the applicability of the Born rule in a quantum mechanical world.
Highlights
Ever since the thermodynamics of a black hole was discovered [1,2], it has been a key element in advancing our understanding of quantum gravity
We have presented a coherent picture of the quantum mechanics of an evaporating black hole [10], building on the tools and ideas developed earlier [11,12,13]
From the point of view of a distant observer, the thermality of a black hole arises because a vast majority of degrees of freedom—which we call soft modes—become temporarily unobservable
Summary
Ever since the thermodynamics of a black hole was discovered [1,2], it has been a key element in advancing our understanding of quantum gravity. We discuss the origin of the particular construction adopted in describing the black hole interior and the outside of a de Sitter horizon We argue that this construction is selected by the quantum-to-classical transition, by the requirement of making most manifest the observables to which the Born rule can be applied. While this issue is irrelevant for asymptotically flat or AdS spacetime, it can become very important when describing a system that is (effectively) finite dimensional, such as the black hole interior and cosmological spacetimes.
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