Complementarity + Back-reaction is enough

TL;DR

This paper shows that considering back-reaction effects in black hole information retrieval resolves a recent paradox, suggesting complementarity suffices with certain S-matrix constraints, without new physics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that back-reaction effects can resolve the practical paradox challenging black hole complementarity, emphasizing the importance of S-matrix constraints.

Findings

Back-reaction can resolve the paradox without new physics.

A specific S-matrix constraint is crucial for the resolution.

Effective field theory may provide further insights into the S-matrix.

Abstract

We investigate a recent development of the black hole information problem, in which a practical paradox has been formulated to show that complementarity is insufficient. A crucial ingredient in this practical paradox is to distill information from the early Hawking radiation within the past lightcone of the black hole. By causality this action can back-react on the black hole. Taking this back-reaction into account, the paradox could be resolved without invoking any new physics beyond complementarity. This resolution requires a certain constraint on the S-matrix to be satisfied. Further insights into the S-matrix could potentially be obtained by effective-field-theory computations of the back-reaction on the nice slice.