Europe/Lisbon
Online

Timothy Hollowood, Swansea University

Is Hawking’s Black Hole Information Loss Paradox Solved?

Recent developments involving replica wormholes, the generalized entropy, quantum extremal surfaces, holographic map, etc, have shown what is missing in Hawking’s original calculation. We can now see how to perform semi-classical calculations that are entirely consistent with unitary: information is not lost. The state of the Hawking radiation has subtle correlations that build up as a black hole evaporates and ensure that the final state is pure. The interpretation of the results for the picture of a black hole with a smooth internal geometry before the singularity is reached is less clear. I will review these developments and present a simple microscopic model which can be used to illustrate the issues involved. The recent observation that the holographic map, the map between the semi-classical and microscopic states, is non-isometric plays a key role. Contrary to some suggestions, manipulation of the radiation far from the black hole cannot affect its interior in a non-local way. The picture seems entirely consistent with microscopic constructions like fuzzballs in string theory.