Courses

The Black Hole Information Paradox

Semester: 
Spring
Offered: 
2021

This is an advanced elective course covering recent developments in our understanding of the black-hole information paradox. We will emphasize the broader lessons that puzzles about black-hole evaporation and the black-hole interior hold for theories of quantum gravity.

We will use the recent review "Lessons from the Information Paradox" as a guide for the lectures.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2012.05770.pdf

We will discuss a number of topics including

1) Hawking's original formulation of the information paradox
2) Paradoxes involving the black-hole interior and the monogamy of entanglement
3) The principle of holography of information
4) Islands
5) Paradoxes involving large AdS black holes
6) Construction of the black-hole interior in AdS/CFT
7) State dependence
8) Fuzzballs, firewalls and other proposals for horizon structure

Quantum Aspects of Black Holes

Semester: 
Fall
Offered: 
2016

Starting with a review of the classical aspects of black holes,  this course will continue on to quantum aspects of black holes. We will review the classical aspects of black hole thermodynamics, the derivation of Hawking radiation, and examine different formulations of the information paradox. Towards the latter half of the course, we will discuss some advanced topics, including black hole complementarity and the information paradox in AdS/CFT, which has led to proposals that include the firewall and alternatives like state-dependence of the BH interior.

SERC School on Black Holes and Information

Offered: 
2015

This course will cover the physics of black holes, leading up to the information paradox. The first few lectures will cover the classical aspects of black holes: the form of the solutions, and various classical phenomenon associated with black holes, leading up to black hole thermodynamics.

In the second part of the course, we will consider quantum aspects of black holes. Starting with a review of QFT in curved space, we will review Hawking's derivation of radiation from black holes and how this leads to a seeming paradox, called the information paradox.