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Why Black Hole Information Loss is Paradoxical

Wallace, David (2017) Why Black Hole Information Loss is Paradoxical. [Preprint]

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Abstract

I distinguish between two versions of the black hole information-loss paradox. The first arises from apparent failure of unitarity on the spacetime of a completely evaporating black hole, which appears to be non-globally-hyperbolic; this is the most commonly discussed version of the paradox in the foundational and semipopular literature, and the case for calling it `paradoxical' is less than compelling. But the second arises from a clash between a fully-statistical-mechanical interpretation of black hole evaporation and the quantum-field-theoretic description used in derivations of the Hawking effect. This version of the paradox arises long before a black hole completely evaporates, seems to be the version that has played a central role in quantum gravity, and is genuinely paradoxical. After explicating the paradox, I discuss the implications of more recent work on AdS/CFT duality and on the `Firewall paradox', and conclude that the paradox is if anything now sharper. The article is written at a (relatively) introductory level and does not assume advanced knowledge of quantum gravity.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Wallace, Daviddmwallac@usc.edu
Keywords: black holes, information loss paradox, hawking radiation, black hole evaporation
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity
Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Depositing User: Professor David Wallace
Date Deposited: 11 Oct 2017 18:17
Last Modified: 11 Oct 2017 18:17
Item ID: 13540
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity
Specific Sciences > Physics > Statistical Mechanics/Thermodynamics
Date: October 2017
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/13540

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