Classical and Quantum Aspects of Black Holes, Horizons and Asymptotic Symmetries

可见的宇宙有被称为视界的边缘，它们环绕着黑洞或宇宙中比光速更快的区域。从爱因斯坦开始，近一个世纪以来，这些边缘的性质一直困扰着物理学家。它们受贝肯斯坦和霍金40年前发现的一套优雅而美丽的量子定律的支配。这些定律表明，黑洞同时也是物理宇宙中最简单和最复杂的物体。它们很简单，因为根据爱因斯坦的广义相对论，实际上没有什么东西在内部--空间的尽头在地平线上。它们之所以复杂，是因为贝肯斯坦-霍金定律意味着它们必须携带最大允许信息。对黑洞的这些二分法描述的共存，构成了一个深刻的悖论，它的解决是现代物理学的一个焦点。虽然基本的悖论仍然没有解决，但通过各种分配方法已经学到了很多东西。解决这一悖论是现代物理学中的一个中心问题，可能会带来对我们宇宙本质的深刻新见解，可以与量子力学和相对论的研究相媲美。在这个项目中，我们提出了继续这些富有成效的研究的具体步骤，以及更广泛地解决这一悖论的普遍方面，它在黑洞和其他视界周围的许多表现形式。我们的研究将从研究弦理论(自然界基本统一理论的候选者)的过程中学到的重要教训中得到启发，但我们将专注于大规模可观察现象的普遍方面，这些现象独立于关于基本自然定律迄今未知完成的任何假设。在这里，我们追求一种自下而上的方法，从天体物理观察到的地平线属性，强大的对称性--广义协方差--爱因斯坦广义相对论背后的强大对称性，以及基本的物理和数学一致性。

The visible universe has edges, known as event horizons, which surround a black hole or a region of the universe speeding away faster than light. The nature of these edges has vexed physicists, beginning with Einstein, for nearly a century. They are governed by an elegant and beautiful set of quantum laws discovered four decades ago by Bekenstein and Hawking. These laws indicate that black holes are at once the simplest and most complex objects in the physical universe. They are simple because, according to Einstein's general relativity there is in effect nothing inside - space ends at the horizon. They are complex because the Bekenstein-Hawking laws imply that they must carry the maximal allowable information. The coexistence of these dichotomous descriptions of black holes underlies a deep paradox whose resolution is a focal point of modern physics. While the basic paradox remains unsolved, much has been learned using a variety of apporaches. Resolving the paradox is a central problem in modern physics and will likely lead to profound new insights into the nature of our universe, comparable to those following from quantum mechanics and relativity.In this project we propose specific steps to continue these fruitful investigations as well as more generally address universal aspects of the paradox, in its many manifestations surrounding black hole and other horizons. Our investigations will be informed by important lessons learned in the process of studying string theory (a candidate for a fundamental unified theory of nature), but we will concentrate on universal aspects of large-scale observable phenomena which are independent of any assumptions about the as yet-unknown completion of the fundamental laws of nature. Here we pursue a bottom-up approach working from astrophysically observed properties of horizons, the powerful symmetry -general covariance- underlying Einstein's theory of general relativity, and basic physical and mathematical consistency.