Firewall From Effective Field Theory

Understand

For an effective field theory in the background of an evaporating black hole with spherical symmetry, we consider non-renormalizable interactions and their relevance to physical effects.

• The background geometry is determined by the semi-classical Einstein equation for an uneventful horizon where the vacuum energy-momentum tensor is small for freely falling observers.
• Surprisingly, after Hawking radiation appears, the transition amplitude from the Unruh vacuum to certain multi-particle states grows exponentially with time for a class of higher-derivative operators after the collapsing matter enters the near-horizon region, despite the absence of large curvature invariants.
• Within the scrambling time, the uneventful horizon transitions towards a firewall, and eventually the effective field theory breaks down.