Is Alice burning or fuzzing?

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the AMPS black hole paradox using decoherence theory, showing that high-energy quanta interact differently with radiation, supporting fuzzball complementarity as an alternative to firewalls.

Contribution

It reformulates the AMPS Gedankenexperiment within decoherence theory and provides a new perspective supporting fuzzball complementarity for high-energy quanta.

Findings

Low energy wave packets interact violently with radiation.

High energy wave packets do not interact violently.

Supports fuzzball complementarity as an alternative to firewalls.

Abstract

Recently, Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski and Sully (AMPS) have suggested a Gedankenexperiment to test black hole complementarity. They claim that the postulates of black hole complementarity are mutually inconsistent and choose to give up the "absence of drama" for an infalling observer. According to them the black hole is shielded by a firewall no later than Page time. This has generated some controversy. We find that an interesting picture emerges when we take into account objections from the advocates of fuzzballs. We reformulate AMPS' Gedankenexperiment in the decoherence picture of quantum mechanics and find that low energy wave packets interact with the radiation quanta rather violently while high energy wave packets do not. This is consistent with Mathur's recent proposal of fuzzball complementarity for high energy quanta falling into fuzzballs.