From qubits to black holes: entropy, entanglement and all that

Entropy plays a crucial role in characterization of information and entanglement, but it is not a scalar quantity and for many systems it is different for different relativistic observers. Loop quantum gravity predicts the Bekenstein-Hawking term for black hole entropy and logarithmic correction to it. The latter originates in the entanglement between the pieces of spin networks that describe black hole horizon. Entanglement between gravity and matter may restore the unitarity in the black hole evaporation process. If the collapsing matter is assumed to be initially in a pure state, then entropy of the Hawking radiation is exactly the created entanglement between matter and gravity.Comment: Honorable Mention in the 2005 Gravity Research Foundation Essay Competitio

Statistical Origin of Black Hole Entropy in Matrix Theory

The statistical entropy of black holes in M-theory is considered. Assuming Matrix theory is the discretized light-cone quantization of a theory with eleven-dimensional Lorentz invariance, we map the counting problem onto the original Gibbons-Hawking calculation of the thermodynamic entropy.Comment: 9 pages, harvmac, (v2 References added, typo fixed), (v3 Some clarifying comments added.

Soliton Induced Singularities in 2 d Gravity and their Evaporation

Positive energy singularities induced by Sine-Gordon solitons in 1+1 dimensional dilaton gravity with positive and negative cosmological constant are considered. When the cosmological constant is positive, the singularities combine a white hole, a timelike singularity and a black hole joined smoothly near the soliton center. When the cosmological constant is negative, the solutions describe two timelike singularities joined smoothly near the soliton center. We describe these spacetimes and examine their evaporation in the one loop approximation.Comment: 15 pages (37.7 kb), PHYZZX. Figures available from authors

Thermodynamics of the two-dimensional black hole in the Teitelboim-Jackiw theory

The two-dimensional theory of Teitelboim and Jackiw has constant and negative curvature. In spite of this, the theory admits a black hole solution with no singularities. In this work we study the thermodynamics of this black hole using York's formalism.Comment: 16 pages, Late

Does the generalized second law hold in the form of time derivative expression?

We investigate whether the generalized second law is valid, using two dimensional black hole spacetime, irrespective of models. A time derivative form of the generalized second law is formulated and it is shown that the law might become invalid. The way to resolve this difficulty is also presented and discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, revte

The information paradox and the locality bound

Hawking's argument for information loss in black hole evaporation rests on the assumption of independent Hilbert spaces for the interior and exterior of a black hole. We argue that such independence cannot be established without incorporating strong gravitational effects that undermine locality and invalidate the use of quantum field theory in a semiclassical background geometry. These considerations should also play a role in a deeper understanding of horizon complementarity.Comment: 21 pages, harvmac; v2-3. minor corrections, references adde

Hawking Radiation and Unitary evolution

We find a family of exact solutions to the semi-classical equations (including back-reaction) of two-dimensional dilaton gravity, describing infalling null matter that becomes outgoing and returns to infinity without forming a black hole. When a black hole almost forms, the radiation reaching infinity in advance of the original outgoing null matter has the properties of Hawking radiation. The radiation reaching infinity after the null matter consists of a brief burst of negative energy that preserves unitarity and transfers information faster than the theoretical bound for positive energy.Comment: LaTex file + uuencoded ps version including 4 figure

Solving the Simplest Theory of Quantum Gravity

We solve what is quite likely the simplest model of quantum gravity, the worldsheet theory of an infinitely long, free bosonic string in Minkowski space. Contrary to naive expectations, this theory is non-trivial. We illustrate this by constructing its exact factorizable S-matrix. Despite its simplicity, the theory exhibits many of the salient features expected from more mature quantum gravity models, including the absence of local off-shell observables, a minimal length, a maximum achievable (Hagedorn) temperature, as well as (integrable relatives of) black holes. All these properties follow from the exact S-matrix. We show that the complete finite volume spectrum can be reconstructed analytically from this S-matrix with the help of the thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz. We argue that considered as a UV complete relativistic two-dimensional quantum field theory the model exhibits a new type of renormalization group flow behavior, "asymptotic fragility". Asymptotically fragile flows do not originate from a UV fixed point.Comment: 32+4 pages, 1 figure, v2: typos fixed, published versio

Non-zero entropy density in the XY chain out of equilibrium

The von Neumann entropy density of a block of n spins is proved to be non-zero for large n in the non-equilibrium steady state of the XY chain constructed by coupling a finite cutout of the chain to the two infinite parts to its left and right which act as thermal reservoirs at different temperatures. Moreover, the non-equilibrium density is shown to be strictly greater than the density in thermal equilibrium

Geometric Entropy of Nonrelativistic Fermions and Two Dimensional Strings

We consider the geometric entropy of free nonrelativistic fermions in two dimensions and show that it is ultraviolet finite for finite fermi energies, but divergent in the infrared. In terms of the corresponding collective field theory this is a {\em nonperturbative} effect and is related to the soft behaviour of the usual thermodynamic entropy at high temperatures. We then show that thermodynamic entropy of the singlet sector of the one dimensional matrix model at high temperatures is governed by nonperturbative effects of the underlying string theory. In the high temperature limit the ``exact'' expression for the entropy is regular but leads to a negative specific heat, thus implying an instability. We speculate that in a properly defined two dimensional string theory, the thermodynamic entropy could approach a constant at high temperatures and lead to a geometric entropy which is finite in the ultraviolet.Comment: LaTex, 19 pages, no figures. Some references adde