Python’s Lunch: geometric obstructions to decoding Hawking radiation

Brown, Adam R. and Gharibyan, Hrant and Penington, Geoff and Susskind, Leonard (2020) Python’s Lunch: geometric obstructions to decoding Hawking radiation. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2020 (8). Art. No. 121. ISSN 1029-8479. doi:10.1007/jhep08(2020)121. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20200831-085554082

	PDF - Published Version Creative Commons Attribution. 4MB
	PDF - Submitted Version See Usage Policy. 3MB

Use this Persistent URL to link to this item: https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20200831-085554082

Abstract

According to Harlow and Hayden [arXiv:1301.4504] the task of distilling information out of Hawking radiation appears to be computationally hard despite the fact that the quantum state of the black hole and its radiation is relatively un-complex. We trace this computational difficulty to a geometric obstruction in the Einstein-Rosen bridge connecting the black hole and its radiation. Inspired by tensor network models, we conjecture a precise formula relating the computational hardness of distilling information to geometric properties of the wormhole — specifically to the exponential of the difference in generalized entropies between the two non-minimal quantum extremal surfaces that constitute the obstruction. Due to its shape, we call this obstruction the ‘Python’s Lunch’, in analogy to the reptile’s postprandial bulge.

Item Type:

Article

Related URLs:

URL	URL Type	Description
https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep08(2020)121	DOI	Article
https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.00228	arXiv	Discussion Paper
https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.4504	arXiv	Discussion Paper - Harlow and Hayden

Additional Information:

© 2020 The Authors. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Article funded by SCOAP3. Received 27 February 2020; Accepted 21 July 2020; Published 25 August 2020. We thank Andras Gilyen, Patrick Hayden, John Preskill, Stephen Shenker for fruitful discussions. H.G. is supported by the Simons Foundation through the It from Qubit collaboration. G.P. is supported in part by AFOSR award FA9550-16-1-0082 and DOE award DE-SC0019380. L.S. is supported by NSF Award Number 1316699.

Group:

Institute for Quantum Information and Matter

Funders:

Funding Agency	Grant Number
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)	FA9550-16-1-0082
Department of Energy (DOE)	DE-SC0019380
NSF	PHY-1316699
SCOAP3	UNSPECIFIED

Subject Keywords:

AdS-CFT Correspondence, Black Holes, Models of Quantum Gravity

Issue or Number:

DOI:

10.1007/jhep08(2020)121

Record Number:

CaltechAUTHORS:20200831-085554082

Persistent URL:

https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20200831-085554082

Official Citation:

Brown, A.R., Gharibyan, H., Penington, G. et al. The Python’s Lunch: geometric obstructions to decoding Hawking radiation. J. High Energ. Phys. 2020, 121 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2020)121

Usage Policy:

No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.

ID Code:

105159

Collection:

CaltechAUTHORS

Deposited By:

Tony Diaz

Deposited On:

08 Sep 2020 19:02

Last Modified:

16 Nov 2021 18:40

Repository Staff Only: item control page