Black holes and everyday physics

Black holes have piqued much curiosity. But thus far they have been important only in remote subjects like astrophysics and quantum gravity. We show that the situation can be improved. By a judicious application of black hole physics, one can obtain new results in everyday physics. For example, black holes yield a quantum universal upper bound on the entropy-to-energy ratio for ordinary thermodynamical systems which was unknown earlier. It can be checked, albeit with much labor, by ordinary statistical methods. Black holes set a limitation on the number of species of elementary particles-quarks, leptons, neutrinos-which may exist. And black holes lead to a fundamental limitation on the rate at which information can be transferred for given message energy by any communication system.This Essay received the first award from the Gravity Research Foundation for the year 1981-Ed.     

Black holes and information theory

During the past three decades investigators have unveiled a number of deep connections between physical information and black holes whose consequences for ordinary systems go beyond what has been deduced purely from the axioms of information theory. After a self-contained introduction to black hole thermodynamics, we review from its vantage point topics such as the information conundrum that emerges from the ability of incipient black holes to radiate, the various entropy bounds for non-black hole systems (holographic bound, universal entropy bound, etc.) which are most easily derived from black hole thermodynamics, Bousso's covariant entropy bound, the holographic principle of particle physics, and the subject of channel capacity of quantum communication channels.     

Positiveness of mass and the strong energy condition

An important question in general relativity is, what conditions are sufficient to guarantee that the mass of a bounded system be positive? We approach this problem for static non-vacuum systems with the help of a formula for the gravitational mass (a generalization of one given earlier by Tolman) which separates the contributions of the singularities from those of the matter fields. For a singularity-free system, if the matter fields obey the strong energy condition familiar from the “singularity theorems,” then the mass will be positive. For systems with matter not obeying the strong energy condition, a much weakened energy condition is still sufficient to guarantee positive mass. We illustrate both of the cases with concrete examples.     

Black holes with scalar charge

Previously it had been thought that a stationary black hole with an exterior devoid of matter can be parametrized only by mass, angular momentum, and electric charge. We show here that scalar charge is also an admissible parameter. Our starting point is a new solution of Einstein's equations with stress-energy of electromagnetic and conformal scalar fields which we presented earlier. It has a black-hole geometry, and is parametrized by electric and scalar charges. Its conformal scalar field is unbounded at the event horizon, and we originally regarded this feature as incompatible with a black hole interpretation. However, following a suggestion of B. DeWitt, we show here that the infinity in the scalar field need not be physically pathological: it is not associated with an infinite potential barrier for test scalar charges; it does not cause the termination of any trajectories of these test particles at finite proper time; and it is not connected with unbounded tidal accelerations between neighboring trajectories. In view of these facts, we now regard the new solution as a genuine black hole solution.     

Black Holes Are One-Dimensional

The holographic principle has revealed that phyical systems in 3-D space, black holes included, are basically two-dimensional as far as their information content is concerned. This conclusion is complemented by one sketched here: as far as entropy or information flow is concerned, a black hole behaves as a one-dimensional channel. We define a channel in flat spacetime in thermodynamic terms, and contrast it with common entropy emitting systems. A black hole is more like the former: its entropy output is related to the emitted power as it would be for a one-dimensional channel, and disposal of an information stream down a black hole is limited by the power invested in the same way as for a one-dimensional channel.     

Operator algebras and a theorem of Dieudonne

LetA be aC*-algebra with second dualA″. Let (φ _n)(n=1,...) be a sequence in the dual ofA such that limφ _n(a) exists for eacha εA. In general, this does not imply that limφ _n(x) exists for eachx εA″. But if limφ _n(p) exists whenever p is the range projection of a positive self-adjoint element of the unit ball ofA, then it is shown that limφ _n(x) does exist for eachx inA″. This is a non-commutative generalisation of a celebrated theorem of Dieudonné. A new proof of Dieudonné’s theorem, for positive measures, is given here. The proof of the main result makes use of Dieudonné’s original theorem.