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Black holes: complementarity or firewalls?

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Abstract

We argue that the following three statements cannot all be true: (i) Hawking radiation is in a pure state, (ii) the information carried by the radiation is emitted from the region near the horizon, with low energy effective field theory valid beyond some microscopic distance from the horizon, and (iii) the infalling observer encounters nothing unusual at the horizon. Perhaps the most conservative resolution is that the infalling observer burns up at the horizon. Alternatives would seem to require novel dynamics that nevertheless cause notable violations of semiclassical physics at macroscopic distances from the horizon.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of California, MC-9530, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, U.S.A

    Ahmed Almheiri, Donald Marolf & James Sully

  2. Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, MC-4030, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, U.S.A

    Donald Marolf & Joseph Polchinski

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  1. Ahmed Almheiri
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  2. Donald Marolf
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  3. Joseph Polchinski
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  4. James Sully
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Correspondence to Joseph Polchinski.

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ArXiv ePrint: 1207.3123

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Almheiri, A., Marolf, D., Polchinski, J. et al. Black holes: complementarity or firewalls?. J. High Energ. Phys. 2013, 62 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP02(2013)062

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