The Information Paradox and the Black Hole Interior in AdS/CFT

We review a recent proposal that quantum effects may be large enough to modify the structure of the black hole horizon and create a "firewall" there. We test this idea by constructing local probes of the black hole horizon. This leads us to the conclusion that, at least in black holes formed from collapse, the horizon is smooth --- precisely in line with semi-classical expectations.

This investigation has several interesting outcomes: an examination of how the arguments for the firewall are sidestepped points to some interesting aspects of locality in quantum gravity, and also to a connection between entanglement and geometry.

We also describe how this construction of local operators leads to interesting connections with a branch of mathematical physics through the Tomita-Takesaki theory of modular isomorphisms of von Neumann algebras.

References:
1) Black Holes: Complementarity or Firewalls, arXiv:1207.3123
2) The Black Hole Interior in AdS/CFT and the Information Paradox: arXiv:1310.6334
3) Cool horizons for entangled black hole, arXiv:1306.0533