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Quantum computation vs. firewalls

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Abstract

In this paper we discuss quantum computational restrictions on the types of thought experiments recently used by Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski, and Sully to argue against the smoothness of black hole horizons. We argue that the quantum computations required to do these experiments would take a time which is exponential in the entropy of the black hole under study, and we show that for a wide variety of black holes this prevents the experiments from being done. We interpret our results as motivating a broader type of nonlocality than is usually considered in the context of black hole thought experiments, and claim that once this type of nonlocality is allowed there may be no need for firewalls. Our results do not threaten the unitarity of black hole evaporation or the ability of advanced civilizations to test it.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, Princeton University, 400 Jadwin Hall, Washington Road, Princeton, NJ, United States

    Daniel Harlow

  2. School of Computer Science, McGill University, 3480 Rue University, Montreal, Canada

    Patrick Hayden

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  1. Daniel Harlow
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  2. Patrick Hayden
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Correspondence to Daniel Harlow.

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Dedicated to John Preskill on the occasion of his 60th birthday

ArXiv ePrint: 1301.4504

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Harlow, D., Hayden, P. Quantum computation vs. firewalls. J. High Energ. Phys. 2013, 85 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2013)085

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