Quantum gravity without space-time singularities or horizons

Abstract

In an attempt to re-establish space-time as an essential frame for formulating quantum gravity - rather than an "emergent" one -, we find that exact invariance under scale transformations is an essential new ingredient for such a theory. Use is made of the principle of "black hole complementarity", the notion that observers entering a black hole describe its dynamics in a way that appears to be fundamentally different from the description by an outside observer. These differences can be boiled down to conformal transformations. If we add these to our set of symmetry transformations, black holes, space-time singularities, and horizons disappear, while causality and locality may survive as important principles for quantum gravity.