Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: It is a problem of great importance in quantum gravity whether quantum effects lead to nontrivial structure near black hole horizons, and if their interiors are emergent features of a large $N$ limit. We show that the strongly chaotic nature of black holes, captured by random matrix statistics of their spectrum, makes it so that a suitably gravitationally dressed infalling observer takes an infinite amount of proper time to reach the horizon. This makes the black hole interior operationally inaccessible to any outside observer, marking a sharp breakdown of the large $N$ causal structure of black holes in quantum gravity. To model the experience of an infalling observer, we study the response of an infalling particle detector coupled to a matter field in a 2d quantum black hole background, finding a peak in the detector's excitation probability as it enters an infinitely long non-perturbative journey close to the black hole horizon.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Institution: Ghent University
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7211912347