Toy model for decoherence in the black hole information problem
Abstract
We investigate a plausible route to resolving the black hole information paradox by examining the effects of decoherence on Hawking radiation. In particular, we show that a finite but nonzero rate of decoherence can lead to efficient extraction of information from the evaporating black hole. This effectively pushes the paradox from becoming manifest at the Page time when the black hole has evaporated to half its size, to a timescale solely determined by the rate of decoherence. If this rate is due to a putative interaction with gravitons, the black hole at this timescale can be expected to be Planck sized, but notably without an extensive amount of information packed inside. We justify our findings by numerically studying a toy model of stabilizer circuits that can efficiently model black hole evaporation in the presence of decoherence. The latter is found to be well described by an effective rate equation for the entanglement and which corroborates our findings.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review D
- Pub Date:
- October 2020
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevD.102.086017
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1912.09491
- Bibcode:
- 2020PhRvD.102h6017A
- Keywords:
-
- High Energy Physics - Theory;
- Condensed Matter - Statistical Mechanics;
- Quantum Physics
- E-Print:
- 6 pages + references, 2 figures, version to appear in PRD, included further justification for the model and additional arguments