Simple holographic models of black hole evaporation
Author(s)
Akers, Chris; Engelhardt, Netta; Harlow, Daniel L.
Download13130_2020_Article_13563.pdf (379.4Kb)
Publisher with Creative Commons License
Publisher with Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution
Terms of use
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
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.
Date issued
2020-08Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of PhysicsPublisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Akers, Chris et al. "Simple holographic models of black hole evaporation." Journal of High Energy Physics. 2020, 8 (August 2020): 32
Version: Final published version
ISSN
1029-8479