1992/09/29 by Steven B. Giddings, Giddings, Steven B.
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-th/9209113
openalex publication_date 1992/09/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
These are lecture notes for the 1992 Erice Workshop on Theoretical Physics. They first present a summary of the paradox of information loss to black holes, of its proposed resolutions, and of the flaws in the proposed resolutions. There follows a review of recent attempts to attack this problem, and other issues in black hole physics, using two-dimensional dilaton gravity theories as toy models. These toy models contain collapsing black holes and have for the first time enabled an explicit semiclassical treatment of the backreaction of the Hawking radiation on the geometry of an evaporating black hole. However, a complete answer to the information conundrum seems to require physics beyond the semiclassical approximation. Preliminary attempts to make progress in this direction, using connections to conformal field theory, are described.