Finding Pythons in Unexpected Places

TL;DR

This paper explores how novel quantum extremal surfaces are essential for reconstructing black hole interiors, revealing their role in exponential complexity and supporting the Python's lunch conjecture within holography.

Contribution

It demonstrates that nonclassical quantum extremal surfaces are key to understanding interior mode reconstruction and exponential complexity in black holes, advancing the Python's lunch proposal.

Findings

Quantum extremal surfaces are crucial for black hole interior reconstruction.

Reconstruction of interior modes is exponentially complex due to these surfaces.

Supports the Python's lunch conjecture linking nonminimal extremal surfaces to complexity.

Abstract

We argue that novel (highly nonclassical) quantum extremal surfaces play a crucial role in reconstructing the black hole interior even for isolated, single-sided, non-evaporating black holes (i.e. with no auxiliary reservoir). Specifically, any code subspace where interior outgoing modes can be excited will have a quantum extremal surface in its maximally mixed state. We argue that as a result, reconstruction of interior outgoing modes is always exponentially complex. Our construction provides evidence in favor of a strong Python's lunch proposal: that nonminimal quantum extremal surfaces are the exclusive source of exponential complexity in the holographic dictionary. We also comment on the relevance of these quantum extremal surfaces to the geometrization of state dependence in the typicality arguments for firewalls.