【T. D. Lee Colloquium No. 22】Information loss paradox and the AnBHEL experiment

by Prof. Pisen Chen (Taiwan University)

Thursday 24 Apr 2025, 13:30 → 14:30 Asia/Shanghai

Tsung-Dao Lee Institute/S5F-S500 - Lecture Hall (Tsung-Dao Lee Institute)

Abstract

The question of whether Hawking evaporation violates unitarity, and therefore results in the loss of information, has remained unresolved since Hawking’s seminal discovery. While by now most experts tend to believe that black evaporation in the end still preserves the unitarity, therefore the information, the question remains as to how the information is preserved. In this talk, we invoke the Euclidean path integral formalism to reinvestigate the evolution of the black hole entanglement entropy by considering multiple histories arisen from instanton tunneling between different paths. We found that the well-known Page curve should be significantly modified, with the Page time, i.e., the turning point of the entanglement entropy, moves toward the end-point of black hole evaporation. One consequence of this modified Page curve is that the Bekenstein bound is violated. We will comment on the implications.   

We note that to date, the investigations of information loss paradox remain mostly theoretical since it is almost impossible to settle this paradox through direct astrophysical black hole observations. Laboratory analog black hole experiments are therefore an indispensable means to investigate this very fundamental physics issue. In 2017, Chen and Mourou, the 2018 Nobel Laureate, pointed out that flying relativistic plasma mirrors induced by intense laser pulses can serve as a tool to study the information loss paradox. Such an experiment is analogous to the late time evolution of black hole Hawking evaporation. An international AnaBHEL (Analog Black Hole Evaporation via Lasers) collaboration has been formed since 2017 with the objective to observe the analog Hawking radiation and to shed some lights on the information loss paradox. I will review the concept of plasma wakefields and the flying plasma mirror, and discuss the design and status of the AnaBHEL Experiment.

 

Bio:

Professor Pisin Chen is the Chee-Chun Leung Distinguished Chair Professor of Cosmology at Taiwan University. He received his BS degree from TU and PhD in theoretical particle physics from UCLA under Prof. J. J. Sakurai. He was a postdoc of Prof. John Dawson in 1984-1986. He then worked at SLAC National Accelerator Center from 1986 to 2007. In 2000, he initiated and successfully raised private endowment to establish the Pehong and Adele Chen Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (later renamed the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology) at Stanford University. He joined the faculty of his alma mater TU in 2007, and again successfully raised private endowment to found the Leung Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics (LeCosPA) and served as its director since 2007 until the end of 2023. He is the LeCosPA Founding Director Emeritus since 2024. Professor Pisin Chen is internationally recognized as the inventor of the particle-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) concept in 1985. He is the Laureate of the 2018 Blaise Pascal Chair bestowed by the Government of Ile de France, the 2023 EPS-DPP Hannes Alfven Prize, and the 2024 AAPPS-DPP Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Prize. 

Tencent meeting link:

 https://meeting.tencent.com/dm/M6mx9F8q3ZsO  (meeting ID: 182 536 374   no password)

 

Host: Prof. Jie Zhang (张杰）