Journal of High Energy Physics (Jan 2020)

Supertranslation hair of Schwarzschild black hole: a Wilson line perspective

  • Sangmin Choi,
  • S. Sandeep Pradhan,
  • Ratindranath Akhoury

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP01(2020)013
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2020, no. 1
pp. 1 – 42

Abstract

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Abstract We demonstrate within the quantum field theoretical framework that an asymptotic particle falling into the black hole implants soft graviton hair on the horizon, conforming with the classical proposal of Hawking, Perry and Strominger. A key ingredient to this result is the construction of gravitational Wilson line dressings of an infalling scalar field, carrying a definite horizon supertranslation charge. It is shown that a typical Schwarzschild state is degenerate, and can be labeled by different soft supertranslation hairs parametrized for radial trajectories by the mass and energy of the infalling particle and its asymptotic point of contact with the horizon. The supertranslation zero modes are also obtained in terms of zero-frequency graviton operators, and are shown to be the expected canonical partners of the linearized horizon charge that enlarge the horizon Hilbert space.

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