Quantum black holes: inside and outside

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Lin, Wei-Chen, Yeom, Dong-han, Stojkovic, Dejan
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Lin, Wei-Chen
Yeom, Dong-han
Stojkovic, Dejan
author_facet Lin, Wei-Chen
Yeom, Dong-han
Stojkovic, Dejan
contents For a unitary description of an evaporating black hole, one usually chooses the time slices that cover only outside of the event horizon, which is mostly problem-free because the event horizon is not encountered. However, is there any justification for avoiding time slices that cover inside the event horizon? To answer the question, we investigate the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, where the time slices can cover both inside and outside the event horizon. We find that one can reasonably construct a wave packet that covers outside, but the wave function must be annihilated near the event horizon. This observation strongly suggests that we cannot choose a coherent state for a spacelike hypersurface that crosses the event horizon. To explain the unitary time evolution, we must keep the slices as coherent states; hence, they must always be outside the event horizon. In contrast, inside the horizon, we cannot have a single coherent state of a classical spacetime. Hence, the interior must be a superposition of several coherent states, which implies that there exists a horizon-scale uncertainty and a black hole should be viewed as a highly quantum macroscopic object. We provide a synthetic approach to understanding the information loss paradox from this perspective.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_20799
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantum black holes: inside and outside
Lin, Wei-Chen
Yeom, Dong-han
Stojkovic, Dejan
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
For a unitary description of an evaporating black hole, one usually chooses the time slices that cover only outside of the event horizon, which is mostly problem-free because the event horizon is not encountered. However, is there any justification for avoiding time slices that cover inside the event horizon? To answer the question, we investigate the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, where the time slices can cover both inside and outside the event horizon. We find that one can reasonably construct a wave packet that covers outside, but the wave function must be annihilated near the event horizon. This observation strongly suggests that we cannot choose a coherent state for a spacelike hypersurface that crosses the event horizon. To explain the unitary time evolution, we must keep the slices as coherent states; hence, they must always be outside the event horizon. In contrast, inside the horizon, we cannot have a single coherent state of a classical spacetime. Hence, the interior must be a superposition of several coherent states, which implies that there exists a horizon-scale uncertainty and a black hole should be viewed as a highly quantum macroscopic object. We provide a synthetic approach to understanding the information loss paradox from this perspective.
title Quantum black holes: inside and outside
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.20799