Stringy Information and Black Holes

Understand

We show that in string theory, due to non-perturbative effects, there are cases in which two states that semi-classically are completely different, are in fact the same.

• One state cannot be excited without exciting the other; they are two components of the same state in the exact theory.
• As a result, in some situations that include black holes, the nature of information in string theory is dramatically different than in field theory.
• In particular, each general-relativity state, that lives in the atmosphere of black fivebranes, is accompanied with an excitation that lives on folded strings, which fill the black-hole interior.