Liouville Theory on Horizons: Towards a Quantum Theory of Black Holes

Abstract

We show that any nonextremal black hole can be described by a Liouville theory that lives on its very near horizon region. In classical Liouville theory, the black hole corresponds to a field configuration that reproduces the Rindler metric. In quantum Liouville theory, the black hole state in the CFT is created by the puncture operator that gives rise to a conical singularity with a deficit angle of $2 \pi$. This state is "heavy" with a nonnormalizable wave function in the minisuperspace approximation. Black hole entropy counts the number of ways the "heavy" black hole state can be obtained by acting with a product of "light, quantum" operators in the CFT. Black hole hair is described by the "background charge" in the CFT but its physical nature is unclear.