Joint Theory Seminar
Speaker: Joe Polchinski
Title: Black Holes: Complementarity or Firewalls?
Host: Markus Luty
Room: 432
Abstract: The black hole information paradox presents a sharp conflict between quantum mechanics and locality. AdS/CFT duality indicates that it is locality gives way, but the details have never been clear. Recent developments have sharpened the question, in that it appears that three widely believed statements cannot all be true: (i) the 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 outside the horizon, and (iii) the infalling observer encounters nothing unusual at the horizon.
