Simple holographic models of black hole evaporation
Name
Akers2020_Article_SimpleHolographicModelsOfBlack.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
379.46 KB
Format
Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
a376a9267a5c82a0709c4fa4cbf8147b
Author(s)
Akers, Chris
Engelhardt, Netta
Harlow, Daniel L.
Date Issued
August 2020
Journal
Journal of High Energy Physics
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2020, The Author(s). Several recent papers have shown a close relationship between entanglement wedge reconstruction and the unitarity of black hole evaporation in AdS/CFT. The analysis of these papers however has a rather puzzling feature: all calculations are done using bulk dynamics which are essentially those Hawking used to predict information loss, but applying ideas from entanglement wedge reconstruction seems to suggest a Page curve which is consistent with information conservation. Why should two different calculations in the same model give different answers for the Page curve? In this note we present a new pair of models which clarify this situation. Our first model gives a holographic illustration of unitary black hole evaporation, in which the analogue of the Hawking radiation purifies itself as expected, and this purification is reproduced by the entanglement wedge analysis. Moreover a smooth black hole interior persists until the last stages the evaporation process. Our second model gives an alternative holographic interpretation of the situation where the bulk evolution leads to information loss: unlike in the models proposed so far, this bulk information loss is correctly reproduced by the entanglement wedge analysis. This serves as an illustration that quantum extremal surfaces are in some sense kinematic: the time-dependence of the entropy they compute depends on the choice of bulk dynamics. In both models no bulk quantum corrections need to be considered: classical extremal surfaces are enough to do the job. We argue that our first model is the one which gives the right analogy for what actually happens to evaporating black holes, but we also emphasize that any complete resolution of the information problem will require an understanding of non-perturbative bulk dynamics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2020)032
