Monday, April 25, 2022

Has Hawking's Black Hole Information Paradox Been Resolved? (Video of MSU Theory Seminar 4/22/2022)

 

Theory seminar at Michigan State University April 22 2022. 

Title: Has Hawking's Black Hole Information Paradox Been Resolved? 

Abstract: In 1976 Stephen Hawking argued that black holes cause pure states to evolve into mixed states. Put another way, quantum information that falls into a black hole does not escape in the form of radiation. Rather, it vanishes completely from our universe, thereby violating a fundamental property of quantum mechanics called unitarity. I give a pedagogical introduction to this paradox, suitable for non-experts. Then I discuss recent results concerning the quantum state of the gravitational field of a compact matter source. These results demonstrate the existence of quantum hair, violating the classical No Hair Theorems. I then discuss how this quantum hair affects Hawking radiation, allowing unitary evaporation of black holes. 

No comments:

Post a Comment