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arXiv:2408.15104 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Probing the Page transition via approximate quantum error correction

Haocheng Zhong

Published Jan 16, 2025• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A bstract In recent years, there is a huge progress in understanding the black hole information problem, and the key is that the black hole entropy of radiation should be calculated by the island formula, which describes the Page curve to ensure the unitarity of black hole evaporation. In the paper, we find that the black hole evaporation interpreted by the island formula can be understood in the language of approximate quantum error correction. Furthermore, the Page transition, as a special property of the Page curve, should be understood as the property of approximate quantum error correction itself, i.e. a general class of quantum systems under certain conditions from approximate quantum error correction can also exhibit phenomenon similar to the Page transition.

DOI
10.1007/jhep01(2025)086

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A bstract In recent years, there is a huge progress in understanding the black hole information problem, and the key is that the black hole entropy of radiation should be calculated by the island formula, which describes the Page curve to ensure the unitarity of black hole evaporation. In the paper, we find that the black hole evaporation interpreted by the island formula can be understood in the language of approximate quantum error correction. Furthermore, the Page transition, as a special property of the Page curve, should be understood as the property of approximate quantum error correction itself, i.e. a general class of quantum systems under certain conditions from approximate quantum error correction can also exhibit phenomenon similar to the Page transition.
A bstract In this work, we develop an algebraic description of the Page transition, a key feature in black hole evaporation where the entropy of Hawking radiation follows a unitary Page curve instead of monotonically increasing. By applying concepts from approximate quantum error correction with complementary recovery, we characterize the Page transition as a phase transition in channel recovery. We then generalize the description to infinite-dimensional settings using algebraic relative entropy, which remains valid even in type III factors. For type I/II factors, explicit probes based on relative entropy differences are derived, serving as indicators for the transition at the Page time.
A bstract If the evaporation of a black hole formed from a pure state is unitary, the entanglement entropy of the Hawking radiation should follow the Page curve, increasing from zero until near the halfway point of the evaporation, and then decreasing back to zero. The general argument for the Page curve is based on the assumption that the quantum state of the black hole plus radiation during the evaporation process is typical. In this paper, we show that the Page curve can result from a simple dynamical input in the evolution of the black hole, based on a recently proposed signature of quantum chaos, without resorting to typicality. Our argument is based on what we refer to as the “operator gas” approach, which allows one to understand the evolution of the microstate of the black hole from generic features of the Heisenberg evolution of operators. One key feature which leads to the Page curve is the possibility of dynamical processes where operators in the “gas” can “jump” outside the black hole, which we refer to as void formation processes. Such processes are initially exponentially suppressed, but dominate after a certain time scale, which can be used as a dynamical definition of the Page time. In the Hayden-Preskill protocol for young and old black holes, we show that void formation is also responsible for the transfer of information from the black hole to the radiation. We conjecture that void formation may provide a microscopic explanation for the recent semi-classical prescription of including islands in the calculation of the entanglement entropy of the radiation.
In this work, we develop an algebraic description of the Page transition, a key feature in black hole evaporation where the entropy of Hawking radiation follows a unitary Page curve instead of monotonically increasing. By applying concepts from approximate quantum error correction with complementary recovery, we characterize the Page transition as a phase transition in channel recovery. We then generalize the description to infinite-dimensional settings using algebraic relative entropy, which remains valid even in type III factors. For type I/II factors, explicit probes based on relative entropy differences are derived, serving as indicators for the transition at the Page time.
We investigate quantum correlations between successive steps of black hole evaporation and investigate whether they might resolve the black hole information paradox. ‘Small’ corrections in various models were shown to be unable to restore unitarity. We study a toy qubit model of evaporation that allows small quantum correlations between successive steps and reaffirm previous results. Then, we relax the ‘smallness’ condition and find a nontrivial upper and lower bound on the entanglement entropy change during the evaporation process. This gives a quantitative measure of the size of the correction needed to restore unitarity. We find that these entanglement entropy bounds lead to a significant deviation from the expected Page curve.
The Page curve plotted by the typical random state approximation is not applicable to a system with conserved quantities, such as the evaporation process of a charged black hole during which the electric charge does not radiate out with a uniform rate macroscopically. In this context the symmetry-resolved entanglement entropy may play a significant role in describing the entanglement structure of such a system. We attempt to impose constraints on microscopic quantum states to match with the macroscopic phenomenon of the charge radiation during black hole evaporation. Specifically, we consider a simple qubit system with conserved spin/charge serving as a toy model for the evaporation of charged black holes. We propose refined rules for selecting a random state with conserved quantities to simulate the distribution of charges during the different stages of evaporation, and obtain refined Page curves that exhibit distinct features in contrast to the original Page curve. We find the refined Page curve may have a different Page time and exhibit asymmetric behavior on both sides of the Page time. Such refined Page curves may provide more realistic description for the entanglement between the charged black hole and radiation during the process of evaporation.
The Page curve describing the process of black hole evaporation is derived in terms of a family, parametrized in terms of the evaporation time, of finite type II_1 factors, associated, respectively, to the entanglement wedges of the black hole and the radiation. The so defined Page curve measures the relative continuous dimension of the black hole and the radiation along the evaporation process. The transfer of information is quantitatively defined in terms of the Murray von Neumann parameter describing the change of the spatial properties of the factors during the evaporation. In the simplest case the generator of the evaporation process is defined in terms of the action of the fundamental group of the hyperfinite type II_1 factor. In this setup the Page curve describes a phase transition with the transfer of information as order parameter. We discuss the limits of either a type I or a type III description of the black hole evaporation.