New Concepts for Old Black Holes

Abstract

It has been argued that the AMPS paradox implies catastrophic breakdown of the equivalence principle in the neighborhood of a black hole horizon, or even the non-existence of any spacetime at all behind the horizon. Maldacena and the author suggested a different resolution of the paradox based on the close relationship between Einstein-Rosen bridges and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entanglement. In this paper the new mechanisms required by the proposal are reviewed: the ER=EPR connection: precursors: timefolds: and the black hole interior as a fault-tolerant, negative information message. Along the way a model of an ADS black hole as a single long-string is explained, and used to clarify the relation between Wilson loops and precursors.