2011/12/14 by Gia Dvali, G. Dvali, C. Gomez +4 · 41 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Black hole (networking) #Black hole information paradox #Boson #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Entropy (arrow of time) #Gravitation #Graviton #Hawking radiation #Mathematical physics #Micro black hole #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Physics #Quantum #Quantum gravity #Quantum mechanics #cond-mat.supr-con #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/prop.201300001
published in Fortschritte der Physik 61(7-8), 742-767 (Wiley) · 37 pages, Latex
arxiv created 2011/12/14 · arxiv updated 2012/03/19 · openalex publication_date 2013/04/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract We establish a quantum measure of classicality in the form of the occupation number, N, of gravitons in a gravitational field. This allows us to view classical background geometries as quantum Bose‐condensates with large occupation numbers of soft gravitons. We show that among all possible sources of a given physical length, N is maximized by the black hole and coincides with its entropy. The emerging quantum mechanical picture of a black hole is surprisingly simple and fully parameterized by N. The black hole is a leaky bound‐state in form of a cold Bose‐condensate of N weakly‐interacting soft gravitons of wave‐length √N times the Planck length and of quantum interaction strength 1/N. Such a bound‐state exists for an arbitrary N. This picture provides a simple quantum description of the phenomena of Hawking radiation, Bekenstein entropy as well as of non‐Wilsonian UV‐self‐completion of Einstein gravity. We show that Hawking radiation is nothing but a quantum depletion of the graviton Bose‐condensate, which despite the zero temperature of the condensate produces a thermal spectrum of temperature T = 1/(√N). The Bekenstein entropy originates from the exponentially growing with N number of quantum states. Finally, our quantum picture allows to understand classicalization of deep‐UV gravitational scattering as 2 → N transition. We point out some fundamental similarities between the black holes and solitons, such as a t'Hooft‐Polyakov monopole. Both objects represent Bose‐condensates of N soft bosons of wavelength √N and interaction strength 1/N. In short, the semi‐classical black hole physics is 1/N‐coupled large‐N quantum physics.