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Effective field theory models for nonviolent information transfer from black holes

Transfer of quantum information from the interior of a black hole to its atmosphere is described, in models based on effective field theory. This description illustrates that such transfer need not be violent to the semiclassical geometry or to infalling observers, and in particular can avoid producing a singular horizon or "firewall." One can specifically quantify the rate of information transfer, and show that a rate necessary to unitarize black hole evaporation produces a relatively mild modification to the stress tensor near the horizon. In an exterior description of the transfer, the new interactions responsible for it are approximated by "effective sources" acting on fields in the black hole atmosphere. If the necessary interactions couple to general modes in the black hole atmosphere, one also finds a straightforward mechanism for information transfer rates to increase when a black hole is mined, avoiding paradoxical behavior. Correspondence limits are discussed, in the presence of such new interactions, for both small black holes and large ones; the near-horizon description of the latter is approximately that of Rindler space.