Quantum mechanics, common sense, and the black hole information paradox

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze, in the light of information theory and with the arsenal of (elementary) quantum mechanics (EPR, correlations, copying machines, teleportation, mixing produced in subsystems owing to a trace operation, etc.) the scenarios available on the market to resolve the so-called black hole information paradox. We shall conclude that the only plausible ones are those where either the unitary evolution of quantum mechanics is given up, in which information leaks continuously in the course of black hole evaporation through nonlocal processes, or those in which the world is polluted by an infinite number of metastable remnants. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.48.4779 © 1993 The American Physical Society