Project description
Quantum gravity theory to probe black holes
Observations of black holes, which form from the remains of massive dead stars, suggest that these once considered abstract, theoretical objects are in fact regular parts of our cosmos. Physicists still lack theoretical understanding of black hole horizons and what happens behind them. For example, they are largely interested in figuring out precisely how the initial information comes out after the black hole evaporates. The EU-funded BHHQG project will address such questions by studying holographic models of lower-dimensional gravity. The researchers will use the Jackiw–Teitelboim gravity theory, which has recently been solved exactly at the quantum level, to increase understanding of black hole horizons and the black hole information paradox.
Objective
"The project ""Black Hole Horizons in Quantum Gravity"" aims for an in-depth investigation of black holes and the information paradox in the context of quantum gravity. Due to the recent breakthroughs in astronomy, these exotic objects have moved from the purely theoretical realm to being abundant in our physical universe. Surprisingly, our theoretical understanding of them is insufficient to even in principle understand their horizons and what happens behind them. Our approach to tackle these questions is to combine a lower-dimensional approach with holography as a guide. Within this framework, substantial breakthroughs were made in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev models, and their low-energy gravitational description in terms of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. This model is exactly solvable to a large degree, and many important lessons on black hole physics and quantum gravity can be studied quantitatively and exactly.
Our goals within this project span across two lines.
Firstly, we will apply quantum gravitational results on the Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity model to address aspects of the black hole information puzzle in a quantitative way and probe the deep questions on black hole horizons largely building on our detailed knowledge of this model. In particular, we will calculate correlation functions of local infalling bulk observables, and assess the effect of quantum gravitational corrections to evaporation. Secondly, it is vital to investigate the universality of the set of techniques and methods we use in Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. We will do this by pursuing several roads simultaneously (dilaton gravity models, 2d string theory, the original Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model, supersymmetric models and 3d pure gravity). Armed with these results, we will extrapolate to higher dimension and in particular to our physical universe making contact with the first objective.
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Fields of science
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
9000 Gent
Belgium