2004/07/06 by Antony Valentini, Valentini, Antony
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #gr-qc #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-th/0407032
50 pages, latex, no figures
arxiv created 2004/07/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
We consider black-hole evaporation from a hidden-variables perspective. It is suggested that Hawking information loss, associated with the transition from a pure to a mixed quantum state, is compensated for by the creation of deviations from Born-rule probabilities outside the event horizon. The resulting states have non-standard or 'nonequilibrium' distributions of hidden variables, with a specific observable signature - a breakdown of the sinusoidal modulation of quantum probabilities for two-state systems. Outgoing Hawking radiation is predicted to contain statistical anomalies outside the domain of the quantum formalism. Further, it is argued that even for a macroscopic black hole, if one half of an entangled EPR-pair should fall behind the event horizon, the other half will develop similar statistical anomalies. We propose a simple rule, whereby the relative entropy of the nonequilibrum (hidden-variable) distribution generated outside the horizon balances the increase in von Neumann entropy associated with the pure-to-mixed transition. It is argued that there are relationships between hidden-variable and von Neumann entropies even in non-gravitational physics. We consider the possibility of observing anomalous polarisation probabilities, in the radiation from primordial black holes, and in the atomic cascade emission of entangled photon pairs from black-hole accretion discs.