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

可见的宇宙有边缘，称为事件视界，它围绕着一个黑洞或宇宙中一个比光速更快的区域。从爱因斯坦开始，这些边缘的性质困扰了物理学家近世纪。它们受贝肯斯坦和霍金四十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，实际上内部没有任何东西--空间在视界处结束。它们是复杂的，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。这些对黑洞的二分法描述的共存构成了一个深刻的悖论，其解决方案是现代物理学的焦点。虽然基本的矛盾仍然没有解决，但已经通过各种途径学到了很多东西。解决这个悖论是现代物理学的一个核心问题，可能会导致对我们宇宙本质的深刻的新见解，与量子力学和相对论相媲美。在这个项目中，我们提出了具体的步骤来继续这些富有成效的调查，以及更普遍地解决悖论的普遍方面，在其围绕黑洞和其他视界的许多表现形式中。我们的研究将借鉴弦理论（自然界基本统一理论的候选者）研究过程中的重要经验教训，但我们将专注于大尺度可观测现象的普适方面，这些普适方面独立于任何关于自然界基本定律未知完备性的假设。在这里，我们追求一种自下而上的方法，从天体物理学观察到的视界性质，强大的对称性-广义协方差-爱因斯坦的广义相对论，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.