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arXiv:2105.03944 · Physical review. D/Physical review. D.

Quantum backflow across a black hole horizon in a toy model approach

Dripto Biswas, Subir Ghosh

Published Nov 24, 2021• 6 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum backflow, discovered quite a few years back, is a generic purely quantum phenomenon, in which the probability of finding a particle in a direction is nonzero (and increasing for a certain period of time) even when the particle has with certainty a velocity in the opposite direction. In this paper, we study quantum backflow of a quantum particle across the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. In a toy model approach, we consider a superposition of two ingoing solutions and observe the probability density and probability current. We explicitly demonstrate a nonvanishing quantum back flow in a small region around the event horizon. This is in contrast to the classical black hole picture, that once an excitation crosses the horizon, it is lost forever from the outside world. Deeper implications of this phenomenon are speculated. We also study quantum backflow for another spacetime with horizon, the Rindler spacetime, where the phenomenon can be studied only within the Rindler wedge.

DOI
10.1103/physrevd.104.104061

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Quantum backflow, discovered quite a few years back, is a generic purely quantum phenomenon, in which the probability of finding a particle in a direction is nonzero (and increasing for a certain period of time) even when the particle has with certainty a velocity in the opposite direction. In this paper, we study quantum backflow of a quantum particle across the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. In a toy model approach, we consider a superposition of two ingoing solutions and observe the probability density and probability current. We explicitly demonstrate a nonvanishing quantum back flow in a small region around the event horizon. This is in contrast to the classical black hole picture, that once an excitation crosses the horizon, it is lost forever from the outside world. Deeper implications of this phenomenon are speculated. We also study quantum backflow for another spacetime with horizon, the Rindler spacetime, where the phenomenon can be studied only within the Rindler wedge.
In this paper, we study quantum backflow across the event horizon of a Schwarzschild Black Hole. As a preliminary study, we superpose two radially ingoing solutions and observe the probability current. We explicitly demonstrate a non-vanishing quantum backflow in a small region around the event horizon. This is in contrast to the classical black hole picture that once an excitation crosses the horizon, it is lost forever from the outside world. Deeper implications of this phenomenon are speculated.
We present an introduction to the backflow effect in quantum mechanics – the phenomenon in which a state consisting entirely of positive momenta may have negative current and the probability flows in the opposite direction to the momentum. We show that the effect is present even for simple states consisting of superpositions of gaussian wave packets, although the size of the effect is small. Inspired by the numerical results of Penz et al, we present a wave function whose current at any time may be computed analytically and which has periods of significant backflow, with a backwards flux equal to about 70 percent of the maximum possible backflow, a dimensionless number c bm ≈ 0.04, discovered by Bracken and Melloy. This number has the unusual property of being independent of ℏ (and also of all other parameters of the model), despite corresponding to a quantum-mechanical effect, and we shed some light on this surprising property by considering the classical limit of backflow. We conclude by discussing a specific measurement model in which backflow may be identified in certain measurable probabilities.
Abstract The merging of quantum information science with the relativity theory presents novel opportunities for understanding the enigmas surrounding the transmission of information in relation to black holes. For this purpose, we study the quantumness near a Schwarzschild black hole in a practical model under decoherence. The scenario we consider in this paper is that a stationary particle in the flat region interacts with its surroundings while another particle experiences free fall in the vicinity of a Schwarzschild black hole’s event horizon. We explore the impacts of Hawking radiation and decoherence on the system under investigation and find that these effects can limit the survival of quantum characteristics, but cannot destroy them completely. Hence, the results of this study possess the potential to yield valuable insights into the comprehension of the quantum properties of a real system operating within a curved space-time framework.
Quantum backflow is a counterintuitive phenomenon in which the probability density of a quantum particle propagates opposite to its momentum. Experimental observation of backflow has remained elusive due to two main challenges: (i) the effect is intrinsically small, with less than 4% of the probability able to flow backward, and (ii) it requires wave packets with a well-defined momentum direction, which are difficult both to prepare and to verify under realistic, noisy conditions. Here, we overcome these challenges by introducing a general formulation of quantum backflow applicable to arbitrary momentum distributions. The framework recovers the standard backflow limit for unidirectional states and identifies general backflow as probability flow exceeding that predicted by the particle's momentum distribution alone. We show that this excess can reach nearly 13%, surpassing the standard backflow bound by more than a factor of three. Furthermore, we extend the framework to the closely related phenomenon of quantum reentry, provide explicit examples of quantum states exhibiting large general backflow and reentry, and discuss the foundational implications of these nonclassical effects. Our results open a pathway toward the experimental observation of quantum backflow in realistic settings.
We investigate quantum characteristics around Schwarzschild black hole, exploring various quantum resources and their interplay in curved space-time. Our analysis reveals intriguing behaviors of quantum coherence, global and genuine multipartite entanglement, first-order coherence, and mutual information in different scenarios. Initially, we consider three particles shared among Alice, Bob, and Charlie in a Minkowski space far from the event horizon, where these particles are correlated via Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger-type correlation. While Alice's particle remains in Minkowski space, Bob and Charlie accelerate towards the event horizon, experiencing black hole evaporation and generating antiparticles correlated via the Hawking effect. We employ the Kruskal basis formulation to derive a pentapartite pure state shared among particles inside and outside the event horizon. Investigating different scenarios among particles both inside and outside the event horizon, we observe how quantum resources evolve and distribute among consideration of different particles with Hawking temperature and mode frequency. The trade-off relationship between first-order coherence and concurrence fill persists, indicating the intricate interplay between coherence and entanglement. Notably, the mutual information between external observers and particles inside the black hole becomes nonzero, deepening our understanding of quantum effects in curved space-time and shedding light on the quantum nature of the black hole. We believe that these findings will pave the way for future investigations into the fundamental quantum mechanical aspects of gravity under extreme environments.
We investigate the Hawking effect on entangled fields. By considering a scalar field which is in a two-mode squeezed state from the point of view of freely falling (Kruskal) observers crossing the horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole, we study the degradation of quantum and classical correlations in the state from the perspective of physical (Schwarzschild) observers confined outside the horizon. Due to monogamy constraints on the entanglement distribution, we show that the lost bipartite entanglement is recovered as multipartite entanglement among modes inside and outside the horizon. In the limit of a small-mass black hole, no bipartite entanglement is detected outside the horizon, while the genuine multipartite entanglement interlinking the inner and outer regions grows infinitely.