The endless journey towards the horizon of a quantum black hole
Abstract
It is a problem of great importance in quantum gravity whether quantum effects lead to nontrivial structure near black hole horizons, and if their interiors are emergent features of a large N limit. We show that the strongly chaotic nature of black holes, captured by random matrix statistics of their spectrum, makes it so that a suitably gravitationally dressed infalling observer takes an infinite amount of proper time to reach the horizon. This makes the black hole interior operationally inaccessible to any outside observer, marking a sharp breakdown of the large N causal structure of black holes in quantum gravity. To model the experience of an infalling observer, we study the response of an infalling particle detector coupled to a matter field in a 2d quantum black hole background, finding a peak in the detector's excitation probability as it enters an infinitely long non-perturbative journey close to the black hole horizon.
Related
- Black Hole Horizon Fluctuations from Unruh Quantum Noise
- Massive quantum divergence on the Cauchy horizon of a black hole
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- Journey to the Center of a Black Hole
- Universal framework for horizon-scale tests of gravity with black hole shadows
BibTeX
@misc{franken2026endless,
title = {{The endless journey towards the horizon of a quantum black hole}},
author = {Victor Franken and Thomas G. Mertens and Bruno de S. L. Torres},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.05164},
eprint = {2609.05164},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.05164},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The endless journey towards the horizon of a quantum black hole
AU - Victor Franken
AU - Thomas G. Mertens
AU - Bruno de S. L. Torres
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/04
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.05164
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.05164
AB - It is a problem of great importance in quantum gravity whether quantum effects lead to nontrivial structure near black hole horizons, and if their interiors are emergent features of a large N limit. We show that the strongly chaotic nature of black holes, captured by random matrix statistics of their spectrum, makes it so that a suitably gravitationally dressed infalling observer takes an infinite amount of proper time to reach the horizon. This makes the black hole interior operationally inaccessible to any outside observer, marking a sharp breakdown of the large N causal structure of black holes in quantum gravity. To model the experience of an infalling observer, we study the response of an infalling particle detector coupled to a matter field in a 2d quantum black hole background, finding a peak in the detector's excitation probability as it enters an infinitely long non-perturbative journey close to the black hole horizon.
ER -