Has the black hole information loss paradox been settled?

Question

This question was triggered by a comment of Peter Shor's (he is a skeptic, it seems.) I thought that the holographic principle and AdS/CFT dealt with that, and was enough for Hawking to give John Preskill a baseball encyclopedia; but Kip Thorne is holding out, as are others. Why?

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Gordon

Answer 1

It is a matter of opinion, largely dependent on what you mean by settled:

1. Is information lost or is evolution unitary? There are arguments based on AdS/CFT which make it almost certain that the evolution of a system from pre-collapse matter to after collapse radiation is unitary. This is because there is a dual description - an equivalent description of the system using different variables - in which unitary evolution is automatic. If this is true for black holes in AdS, it is hard to believe it is somehow different for black holes in flat space which are for all intent and purposes as close to their AdS cousins as we wish them to be. Based on that, most people I know are convinced what the right answer is.

2. How is the information preserved, what is the mechanism for the unitary evolution? In particular, what's wrong with Hawking's original arguments to support information loss? I think it is fair to say that we don't know the answer, at least we don't know how to phrase the answer in the original, gravitational, language. I think there is a lot to learn by making this answer, even if we don't dispute it, as explicit as possible.

3. As a subset of that, were the arguments given by Hawking, based on Maldacena's superficially similar arguments, convincing? Lots of people are skeptical, including myself. There are some technical and conceptual assumptions that don't seem quite right in that proposed solution.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user user566

Comments

In stating that AdS/CFT yields information loss, you seem to miss the entire point of the Maldacena conjecture. The CFT on the boundary of an AdS spacetime is a unitary quantum theory. To quote from MAGOO, pg. 68, sec. 3.1 last para: Holography also implies that black hole evolution is unitary since the boundary theory is unitary. If that is what you were trying to convey with your first point and if I have misinterpreted your words please let me know.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user user346

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That's exactly what I said. Too many double negations maybe? I made that more clear, hopefully.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user user566

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Yes you did. Thanks.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user user346

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A plus one point, Moshe. ;-) In 1) I would probably also add Matrix theory as a system with black holes and evaporation that is - even more - manifestly unitary. I agree with you that the "quasi-local description" explaining why the Hawking's original argument has a loophole is not known. And I agree that Hawking's later proof that the information works is not at the same level of robustness - or meaningfulness - as Maldacena's eternal BH paper. Cheers, LM

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Luboš Motl

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Is AdS/CFT rigorously true? I thought it was only a conjecture supported by a lot of consistency results at this point.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Jerry Schirmer

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Given all the independent consistency checks it passes, it is impossible to believe AdS/CFT it is not correct, but proving it may reveal the underlying structure and explain why it is correct, so it is worthwhile (but hard) project.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user user566

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(+1) The holographic principle enables a consistent description of black hole thermodynamics. No small feat. I know of no other conceptual approach that achieves the same. But as long as we have no theory that tells us 'what are the holographic degrees of freedom' there will always be a minority who doubt the holographic principle.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Johannes

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The problem is the holographic principle essentially follows, b/c nothing else works. 'Remnants' fail to be consistent. The Baby universe picture still violates unitarity. We know that there is not enough time to radiate back all the information at the final stages (during any purported singularity resolution). So by a painful process of elimination, the only thing left that simultaneously respects quantum mechanics and General relativity is this weird idea.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Columbia

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I am not even convinced that AdS/CFT means that evolution of black holes is unitary. Isn't it conceivable that AdS/CFT is a not-quite-exact correspondence, with one of the differences being that black hole evaporation preserves information for CFT but not for AdS? There's no way we can tell unless we understand it better. (Although I do have to admit that if I had to choose sides on a 50-50 bet, I would bet that the universe is unitary.)

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Peter Shor

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Peter: people spent a decade trying to formulate restricted forms of ads/cft, consistent with the existing evidence, for the purpose of generating tests that checked stronger version of the correspondence. Then those tests were confirmed. Unless you can come up with ways your scenario can be formulated consistently, without the aid of an "evil demon" in operation just for BH, my bet would be on unitarity. This is similar to my belief that lack of understanding of high Tc superconductivity does not mean we have a problem with quantum mechanics. Of course, we never know anything for sure.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user user566

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Beyond the question of personal belief, this also indicate that the interesting research questions are shifted. To my taste, detailed understanding of questions in my point (2) is where it makes sense to put one's efforts.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user user566

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@PeterShor: BH's are unitary doesn't mean the universe is unitary, because AdS/CFT doesn't deal with the apparent information loss in the cosmological horizon setting, and I wouldn't be surprised if the cosmological version is true information loss. For those reading this--- yes, AdS/CFT settles BH information, it was in fact the other way around, knowing BH information is settled by Susskind complementarity led to the discovery of Matrix Theory and AdS/CFT.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Ron Maimon

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In the AdS/CFT isn't AdS a 5D anti-de Sitter? What about the cases of black hole in other spacetimes in four dimensions?

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user MBN

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@Ron: I refuse to believe that black holes are unitary but the cosmological horizon is not ... this is one of the reasons I'm not convinced that black holes are indeed unitary.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Peter Shor

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@PeterShor: Why? One type of horizon is paradoxical, the other not. I can't see a logical argument that links information loss in one to information loss in the other.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Ron Maimon

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@MBN: you can take the limit of flat space in AdS/CFT, and you can approximate a positive cosmological constant locally using scalar fields over a large region. It is extremely implausible for AdS black holes to be unitary while other black holes are not.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Ron Maimon

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@Ron: So the unitarity of any black hole can be reduced to the unitarity of a black hole in five dim. AdS?

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user MBN

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@MBN: AdS/CFT is not confined to 5 dimensions, but yes. The AdS/CFT is derived from unitarity, not the other way around, although you can do that too, and this is the argument people seem to have settled on (although it is not as convincing as the other).

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Ron Maimon

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@Ron: I guess I had the wrong impression about the dimensions. What do you mean by "it is derived from unitarity"? I am pretty sure it is still an open conjecture.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user MBN

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@MBN: it is not easy to state it as a precise conjecture, because we don't have a good definition of string theory on AdS which is fully independent. The AdS/CFT defines the theory in a certain sense, and the conjecture would then be that it reproduces string perturbations in certain limits. But the reason people believe it and understand that it must be true is by working backwards from unitarity to holography to AdS/CFT for extremal string branes. The same general argument works for many extremal black holes (maybe all? you might need infinite horizon size, I don't know, I'll think).

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Ron Maimon

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@RonMaimon why you think people expect AdS/CFT to be relevant to our universe? as far as we know we live in a de Sitter space.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user lurscher

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@PeterShor, unitarity is not preserved in general when one measures quantum states, since some information about the system becomes inaccesible, so i agree with you. As you say, the resolution should lie elsewhere

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user lurscher

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@lurscher: "AdS/CFT" is shorthand for a collection of results that apply to any space with extremal black holes. We can make a locally 2d AdS space just by spinning or charging a black hole to extremality. The AdS/CFT comes from a collection of much broader intuitions and results due to Susskind, which are called "black hole complementarity" and "holography", and these are general principles which resolve the information loss puzzle by definition. These predict AdS/CFT, so the confirmation of AdS/CFT is a confirmation of these principles.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Ron Maimon

Answer 2

Susskind complementarity has not solved nor settled the problem. Susskind (first paper considereding firewalls correct) and Harlow (with a loophole) withdrew theirs papers. (later Susskind, posted an amending proposition, but not conclusive)

Black Holes: Complementarity or Firewalls?

Polchinsk, et al.

"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 eective eld 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."

...It is widely believed that an external observer sees this information emitted by complicated dynamics at or very near the horizon, while an observer falling through the horizon encounters nothing special there. These three properties | purity of the Hawking radiation, emission of the information from the horizon, and the absence of drama for the infalling observer | have in particular been incorporated into the axioms of black hole complementarity (BHC)...

...There would be an inconsistency if one were to consider a large Hilbert space that describes both observers at once. Such a Hilbert space appears when quantum gravity is treated as an efective field theory, but it cannot be part of the correct theory of quantum gravity if BHC holds...

...that it uses the naturally produced Hawking pairs rather than introducing ad- ditional entangled ingoing bits. This leads us to a rather dierent conclusion, that the thermalization time does not protect us from an inconsistency of BHC....

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then throw the second (information is lost, non unitary evolution) or the third proposition (no drama infalling observer), in any case complementarity is not enough.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user user12103

Answer 3

I would expect the resolution of this dilemma to hold no relation whatsoever to AdS/CFT, being it specific to anti de Sitter spaces, which makes it irrelevant to our universe (unless someone proves an analog version for de Sitter spaces, which seems unlikely)

I think the key to the resolution of this dilemma is the false assumption that quantum evolution is unitary everywhere and for all observers.

To explain why the above assumption is false, take for instance the process of measurement of quantum observables. Regardless of the philosophical doctrine of measurement one subscribes to, the fact is that part of the information of the measured state is lost forever to the party that obtained information from the measurement. Yes, when observers do measurements to quantum systems, the global superposition of the system observer-system is still there "somewhere", evolving under perfect unitary evolution. However, some of the information from the measured system that is accessible to the observer is lost forever, even in principle, because of apparent collapse. So, it should be clear in this case that even if evolution is unitary for outside observers, physical observer eigenstates involved in the measurement will observe violations of unitarity.

so, unitarity is clearly not an absolute property of a system evolution, but depends on the "frame" where it is observed, and how the system couples to the observational frame.

Let's speculate how to apply the above in the scenario of the black hole information paradox: an observer outside the black hole sends information inside it, when the information crosses the event horizon, the information is lost forever for him.

However, observers inside the event horizon still see the whole system behaving under unitary evolution; the information sent inside the event horizon is still reachable to them. In particular, all entanglement correlations between states in and out of the horizon are preserved from their point of view, of course, as long as the measurement devices keep sending data inside the horizon for these observers to measure the correlations.

The trouble arises because some people is naively expecting quantum unitary evolution to be an absolute property that is agreed on by all observers, but quantum measurements are a clear example how this is not true in general.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user lurscher

Comments

Not my downvote (but I think it's justified): The question of black hole unitarity can't be settled by an appeal to quantum measurement, because you can form and evaporate a black hole as an intermediate state, and the resulting evolution is either unitary or not regardless of observation. As far as throwing entangled particles past a horizon, this is resolved today, the particle you leave outside is entangled with horizon degrees of freedom of the black hole. AdS/CFT can be done in our universe by setting up extremal charged (or rotating) black holes, whose near horizon geometry is AdS.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user Ron Maimon

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@RonMaimon, but there is nothing that can evolve unitarily "regardless" of observation; observation breaks unitarity in every case for the observer doing the measurement/coupling with the observation system (unless you are doing clever stuff like those in the quantum eraser experiments, but those are just more cons of hands and cards that try to disguise measurement in reversible transformations). Give me some time to think in your other observations

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user lurscher

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I think the poster who uses the title Lurscher makes the most sensible comment I have ever seen on the so called black hole information paradox.

This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2014-05-14 19:47 (UCT), posted by SE-user user21990