August 6, 2007
Given the insight steming from string theory, the origin of the black-hole (BH) information puzzle is traced back to the assumption that it is physically meaningful to trace out the density matrix over negative-frequency Hawking particles. Instead, treating them as virtual particles necessarily absorbed by the BH in a manner consistent with the laws of BH thermodynamics, and tracing out the density matrix only over physical BH states, the complete evaporation becomes compatib...
September 2, 2005
After a brief review of critical string theory in trivial backgrounds we begin with introduction to strings in non--trivial backgrounds and noncritical string theory. In particular, we relate the latter to critical string theory in a linear dilaton background. We then show how a black hole background arises from 2D string theory and discuss some of its properties. A time--dependant tachyon background is constructed by perturbing the CFT describing string theory in a linear ...
February 16, 2004
We have used the results of renormalization of a two-dimensional quantum stress tensor to develop a conformally invariant dynamical model. The model requires the consideration of those conformal frames in which there exists a correspondence between the trace anomaly and a cosmological constant. We apply this model to a two dimensional-Schwarzschild (-de Sitter) spacetime to show that in these conformal frames one may achieve Hawking radiation without recourse to the trace ano...
June 5, 1998
Recently, 't Hooft's S-matrix for black hole evaporation, obtained from the gravitational interactions between the in-falling particles and Hawking radiation, has been generalised to include transverse effects. The action describing the collision turned out to be a string theory action with an antisymmetric tensor background. In this article we show that the model reproduces both the correct longitudinal and transverse dynamics, even when one goes beyond the eikonal approxima...
December 14, 1993
We develop the quantization of a macroscopic string which extends radially from a Schwarzschild black hole. The Hawking process excites a thermal bath of string modes that causes the black hole to lose mass. The resulting typical string configuration is a random walk in the angular coordinates. We show that the energy flux in string excitations is approximately that of spacetime field modes.
March 18, 2005
We use a new approach to the UV behavior of quantum general relativity, together with some recent results from the phenomenological asymptotic safety analysis of the theory, to discuss the final state of the Hawking radiation for an originally very massive black hole solution of Einstein's theory. We find that, after the black hole evaporates to the Planck mass size, its horizon is obviated by quantum loop effects, rendering the entire mass of the originally massive black hol...
November 11, 2016
We revisit possible glimpses of black-hole formation by looking at ultra-planckian string-string collisions at very high final-state multiplicity. We compare, in particular, previous results using the optical theorem, the resummation of ladder diagrams at arbitrary loop order, and the AGK cutting rules, with the more recent study of $2 \rightarrow N$ scattering at $N \sim s M_P^{-2} \gg 1$. We argue that some apparent tension between the two approaches disappears once a reint...
November 21, 1991
We indicate the tentative source of instability in the two-dimensional black hole background. There are relevant operators among the tachyon and the higher level vertex operators in the conformal field theory. Connection of this instability with Hawking radiation is not obvious. The situation is somewhat analogous to fields in the background of a negative mass Euclidean Schwarzschild solution (in four dimensions). Speculation is made about decay of the Minkowski black hole in...
August 16, 1997
We review the classical thermodynamics and the greybody factors of general (rotating) non-extreme black holes and discuss universal features of their near-horizon geometry. We motivate a microscopic interpretation of general black holes that relates the thermodynamics of an effective string theory to the geometry of the black hole in the vicinity of both the outer and the inner event horizons. In this framework we interpret several near-extreme examples, the universal low-ene...
January 29, 2019
In this paper we revisited Hawking radiation in the light of the original calculations of Hawking and Wald and found that some additional insights can be gained. We review a "derivation" of the field theory Hilbert space from the space of solutions, followed by the calculation of Bogoliubov coefficients in a collapsed spacetime from first principles. We show that these calculations can be generalized to the case of local Killing horizons and also to asymptotically non-flat sp...