2025/08/27 by Gautam Satishchandran, Satishchandran, Gautam · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Critical Theory and Philosophy #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Political Economy and Marxism #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2508.20171
openalex publication_date 2025/08/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
It was recently shown that a black hole (or any Killing horizon) will decohere any quantum superposition in their vicinity. I review three distinct but equivalent arguments that illustrate how this phenomenon arises: (1) entanglement with "degrees of freedom" in the interior (2) the absorption of soft, entangling radiation emitted by the superposition and (3) interactions with the quantum, fluctuating multipole moments of a black hole arising from ultra low frequency Hawking quanta. The relationship between "soft hair" and interactions with "internal degrees of freedom" is emphasized and some implications for the nature of horizons in a quantum theory of gravity are discussed.