Emergent Relativity

TL;DR

This paper proposes that black hole event horizons are phase boundaries similar to quantum critical surfaces in Bose condensates, suggesting emergent relativity and predicting observable differences from traditional black hole models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analogy between black hole horizons and quantum critical surfaces, implying emergent relativity and challenging existing black hole theories.

Findings

Black hole horizons may be phase boundaries of the vacuum.

Predicted absence of Hawking radiation at black hole surfaces.

Black hole surfaces could be transparent, differing from standard models.

Abstract

A possible resolution of the incompatibility of quantum mechanics and general relativity is that the relativity principle is emergent. I show that the central paradox of black holes also occurs at a liquid-vapor critical surface of a bose condensate but is resolved there by the phenomenon of quantum criticality. I propose that real black holes are actually phase boundaries of the vacuum analogous to this, and that the Einstein field equations simply fail at the event horizon the way quantum hydrodynamics fails at a critical surface. This can occur without violating classical general relativity anywhere experimentally accessible to external observers. Since the low-energy effects that occur at critical points are universal, it is possible to make concrete experimental predictions about such surfaces without knowing much, if anything about the true underlying equations. Many of these predictions are different from accepted views about black holes - in particular the absence of Hawking radiation and the possible transparency of cosmological black hole surfaces. [To appear in the C. N Yang Festschrift (World Sci., Singapore, 2003).]