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Thorlacius, Larus

Publications and source records attributed to Thorlacius, Larus.

Black hole holography and mean field evolution

Holographic theories representing black holes are expected to exhibit quantum chaos. We argue if the laws of quantum mechanics are expected to hold for observers inside such black holes, then such holographic theories must have a mean field approximation valid for typical black hole states, and for timescales approaching the scrambling time. Using simple spin models as examples, we examine the predictions of such an approach for observers inside black holes, and more speculatively inside cosmological horizons.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

A holographic model for black hole complementarity

Here, we explore a version of black hole complementarity, where an approximate semiclassical effective field theory for interior infalling degrees of freedom emerges holo-graphically from an exact evolution of exterior degrees of freedom. The infalling degrees of freedom have a complementary description in terms of outgoing Hawking radiation and must eventually decohere with respect to the exterior Hamiltonian, leading to a breakdown of the semiclassical description for an infaller. Trace distance is used to quantify the difference between the complementary time evolutions, and to define a decoherence time. We propose a dictionary where the evolution with respect to the bulk effective Hamiltonian corresponds to mean field evolution in the holographic theory. In a particular model for the holographic theory, which exhibits fast scrambling, the decoherence time coincides with the scrambling time. The results support the hypothesis that decoherence of the infalling holographic state and disruptive bulk effects near the curvature singularity are comple-mentary descriptions of the same physics, which is an important step toward resolving the black hole information paradox.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Quantum information erasure inside black holes

An effective field theory for infalling observers in the vicinity of a quasi-static black hole is given in terms of a freely falling lattice discretization. The lattice model successfully reproduces the thermal spectrum of outgoing Hawking radiation, as was shown by Corley and Jacobson, but can also be used to model observations made by a typical low-energy observer who enters the black hole in free fall at a prescribed time. The explicit short distance cutoff ensures that, from the viewpoint of the infalling observer, any quantum information that entered the black hole more than a scrambling time earlier has been erased by the black hole singularity. Furthermore, this property, combined with the requirement that outside observers need at least of order the scrambling time to extract quantum information from the black hole, ensures that a typical infalling observer does not encounter drama upon crossing the black hole horizon in a theory where black hole information is preserved for asymptotic observers.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗