Quantum Amplitudes in Black-Hole Evaporation: Complex Approach and Spin-0 Amplitude

TL;DR

This paper develops a complex approach to evaluate quantum amplitudes for black hole decay, showing no information loss and extending previous work with explicit scalar field amplitude expressions.

Contribution

It introduces a complex-time boundary-value method for quantum amplitudes in black hole evaporation, including explicit formulas for scalar field perturbations.

Findings

No information loss in black hole collapse.

Explicit expressions for quantum amplitudes with scalar fields.

Amplitude is semi-classical for weak perturbations.

Abstract

We consider the quantum-mechanical decay of a Schwarzschild-like black hole formed by gravitational collapse into almost-flat space-time and weak radiation at a late time. We evaluate quantum amplitudes (not just probabilities) for transitions from initial to final states, and show that no information is lost in collapse to a black hole. Boundary data for the gravitational field and a scalar field are posed on an initial space-like hypersurface $\Sigma_I$ and a final surface $\Sigma_F$. These asymptotically-flat 3-surfaces are separated by a Lorentzian proper-time interval $T$, measured at spatial infinity. The boundary-value problem is made well-posed, classically and quantum-mechanically, by rotating $T$ into the lower-half complex plane: $T\to {\mid}T{\mid}\exp(-i\theta), 0<\theta\leq\pi/2$. This corresponds to Feynman's $+i\epsilon$ prescription. For the classical boundary-value problem, we calculate the second-variation classical Lorentzian action $S^{(2)}_{class}$ as a functional of the boundary data. Following Feynman, the Lorentzian quantum amplitude is recovered in the limit $\theta\to 0_{+}$ from the well-defined complex-$T$ amplitude. Dirac's canonical approach to the quantisation of constrained systems shows that for locally-supersymmetric theories of gravity the amplitude is exactly semi-classical: $\exp(i S^{(2)}_{class})$ for weak perturbations, apart from delta-functionals of the supersymmetry constraints. We treat such quantum amplitudes for weak scalar-field configurations on $\Sigma_F$, taking the weak final gravitational field to be spherically symmetric. The treatment involves adiabatic solutions of the scalar wave equation. This extends our previous work, giving explicit expressions for the real and imaginary parts of such quantum amplitudes.