Virtual Black Holes, Remnants and the Information Paradox

TL;DR

This paper examines the impact of Planckian quantum black holes and remnants on low energy physics, finding that remnants remain a plausible solution to the black hole information paradox under certain symmetry-preserving conditions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that bounds on quantum black holes and remnants are weak if quantum gravity respects low energy symmetries, supporting remnants as a viable resolution to the information paradox.

Findings

Bounds on quantum black holes are very weak, allowing over 10^{32} such objects.

Remnants remain a plausible solution to the black hole information paradox.

Data on muon magnetic moment constrains black hole abundance.

Abstract

We revisit the question of the contributions of Planckian quantum black holes in general and of remnants in particular to low energy physics observables. As long as quantum gravity preserves the symmetries of the low energy effective field theory, we find that the bounds on the number of quantum black holes or remnants are very weak. Typically we rule out using data on the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon that there are more than $10^{32}$ quantum black holes coupled to the standard model particles gravitationally. Remnants thus remain a viable option as a solution to the information paradox of black holes.