Hawking's black hole area theorem was proven using the null energy condition (NEC), a pointwise condition violated by quantum fields. The violation of the NEC is usually cited as the reason that black hole evaporation is allowed in the context of semiclass ...
We propose a semiclassical method to calculate S-matrix elements for two-stage gravitational transitions involving matter collapse into a black hole and evaporation of the latter. The method consistently incorporates back-reaction of the collapsing and emi ...
Under broad assumptions, breaking of Lorentz invariance in gravitational theories leads to tension with unitarity because it allows for processes that apparently violate the second law of thermodynamics. The crucial ingredient of this argument is the exist ...
In theories with a large number N of particle species, black hole physics imposes an upper bound on the mass of the species equal to M-Planck/root N. This bound suggests a novel solution to the hierarchy problem in which there are N approximate to 10(32) g ...