Event Details

In classical GR, collapsing shells form horizons and thus black holes. On the other hand, quantum information theory arguments (fuzzball/firewall) suggest the existence of additional structure at the black hole horizon, which can only form if the classical GR description breaks down before the collapsing shell reaches horizon size. In this talk, Dr. Mayerson will discuss evidence that this is indeed the case: the tunneling amplitude of a collapsing shell of branes into (a specific class of) smooth horizonless microstate geometries indicates that the shell will tunnel into such horizonless configurations well before the horizon has a chance to form. These tunneling amplitudes further seem to imply that tunneling is preferred into microstate geometries with as many “centers”, or topologically non-trivial cycles, as possible.

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