Quantum Mechanics of Black Holes
Abstract
The popular conception of black holes reflects the behavior of the massive black holes found by astronomers and described by classical general relativity. These objects swallow up whatever comes near and emit nothing. Physicists who have tried to understand the behavior of black holes from a quantum mechanical point of view, however, have arrived at quite a different picture. The difference is analogous to the difference between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. The thermodynamic description is a good approximation for a macroscopic system, but statistical mechanics describes what one will see if one looks more closely.
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References and Notes
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The precise mathematical argument uses the fact that the Hamiltonian operator H is hermitian, so that the transition amplitude <f|H|i> is the complex conjugate of the transition amplitude <i|H|f> in the opposite direction.
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Published In
Science
Volume 337 | Issue 6094
3 August 2012
3 August 2012
Copyright
Copyright © 2012, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Published in print: 3 August 2012
Acknowledgments
This research was supported in part by NSF grant PHY-096944.
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