Comparing the decoherence effects due to black holes versus ordinary matter

TL;DR

This paper compares the decoherence effects caused by black holes and ordinary matter, demonstrating that similar phenomena occur in both cases when modeled as finite-temperature quantum systems, thus unifying their understanding.

Contribution

It introduces an effective theory framework that explains decoherence due to black holes and ordinary matter as fundamentally similar phenomena.

Findings

Decoherence effects are consistent between black holes and ordinary matter at finite temperature.

The same qualitative decoherence behavior applies to both black holes and matter systems.

Modeling black holes as quantum systems reproduces known decoherence results.

Abstract

Recently a certain thought experiment was discussed which involves the decoherence of a quantum system due to a black hole. Here we show how this phenomenon is consistent with standard ideas about quantum black holes. In other words, modeling the black hole as a quantum system at finite temperature one obtains the same answer. We demonstrate this by analyzing the problem in terms of an effective theory that can apply both for the black hole case and for an ordinary matter system, showing that the same qualitative effect is present for ordinary matter at finite temperature.