Firewall or smooth horizon?

Recently, Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski, and Sully found that for a sufficiently old black hole (BH), the set of assumptions known as the \emph{complementarity postulates} appears to be inconsistent with the assumption of local regularity at the horizon. They concluded that the horizon of an old BH is likely to be the locus of local irregularity, a "firewall". Here I point out that if one adopts a different assumption, namely that semiclassical physics holds throughout its anticipated domain of validity, then no inconsistency seems to arise, and the horizon retains its regularity. In this alternative view-point, the vast portion of the original BH information remains trapped inside the BH throughout the semiclassical domain of evaporation, and possibly leaks out later on. This appears to be an inevitable outcome of semiclassical gravity.Comment: A slightly different version (with small modifications, mostly semantic, and some updated references) was published in Gen. Relativ. Gravi

Approximate solution to the CGHS field equations for two-dimensional evaporating black holes

Callan, Giddings, Harvey and Strominger (CGHS) previously introduced a two-dimensional semiclassical model of gravity coupled to a dilaton and to matter fields. Their model yields a system of field equations which may describe the formation of a black hole in gravitational collapse as well as its subsequent evaporation. Here we present an approximate analytical solution to the semiclassical CGHS field equations. This solution is constructed using the recently-introduced formalism of flux-conserving hyperbolic systems. We also explore the asymptotic behavior at the horizon of the evaporating black hole

Charge-exchange reaction cross sections and the Gamow-Teller strength for double beta decay

The proportionality between single charge-exchange reaction cross sections in the forward direction as found, for example from $(p,n)$ and $(^3$He,$t)$ and from $(n,p)$ and $(d,^2$He) reactions, and the Gamow-Teller (GT) strength into the same final nuclear states has been studied and/or assumed often in the past. Using the most physically justified theory we have at our disposal and for the specific example of the ${}^{76}$Ge-${}^{76}$Se system that may undergo double beta-decay, we demonstrate that the proportionality is a relative good assumption for reactions changing a neutron into a proton, i.e. ${}^{76}$Ge$(p,n){}^{76}$As. In this channel, the main contribution to the GT strengths comes from the removal of a neutron from an occupied single-particle (SP) state and putting a proton into an unoccupied SP state having either the same state quantum numbers or those of the spin-orbit partner. In contrast to this, in the second leg of the double beta decay a single proton must be taken from an occupied SP state and a neutron placed in an unoccupied one. This second process often is Pauli forbidden in medium-heavy nuclei and only can be effected if the Fermi surface is smeared out. Such is the case for ${}^{76}$Se$(n,p){}^{76}$As. Our results suggest that one may not always assume a proportionality between the forward-angle cross sections of the charge-exchange reactions and the GT strength in any such medium-heavy nuclei. The discrepancy originates from a pronounced effect of the radial dependence of the nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) interaction in connection with the Pauli principle on the cross sections in the $(n,p)$ reaction channel. Such a radial dependence is completely absent in the GT transition operator.Comment: 14 p., 7 fig