Description:

Northwestern University's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) presents: 

Dr. Erik Curiel
Assistant Professor, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy
Black Hole Initiative Research Fellow, Harvard University

Host: Sandy Zabell (Department of Mathematics)

Talk Title:
A Survey of Foundational Problems for Classical Black Holes and the Hawking Effect

Talk Abstract:
The study of black holes now extends far beyond the field of classical general relativity. They have become central objects for study in many other fields of physics, including semi-classical gravity, quantum gravity, fluid dynamics, condensed matter, nonlinear optics, Bose-Einstein condensates, and on and on. Even in the context of classical general relativity, however, the nature of black holes already raises many foundational problems, such as how exactly to define them. When quantum effects are taken into account, leading to the prediction of Hawking radiation, the problems become ever deeper and more severe. In this talk, I shall review many of the proposed definitions of black holes, and explain why many of them are mutually inconsistent. I then shall review the classical laws of black hole mechanics, and discuss why most people think that the classical laws do not support the attribution of thermodynamical properties to black holes (and point out problems with those standard arguments). I shall then sketch the Hawking effect, explain why most people think that it *does* support the attribution of thermodynamical properties to black holes, and then sketch several problems this attribution raises (what it means to say a region of spacetime has an entropy, the meaning and status of the Generalized Second Law, why we trust these results so much in the absence of empirical support, and the trans-Planckian problem).​