Over the horizon: distinguishing the Schwarzschild spacetime and the $\mathbb{RP}^3$ spacetime using an Unruh-DeWitt detector

Abstract

We show that a particle detector can distinguish the $\mathbb{RP}^3$ geon from the Schwarzschild black hole, even though they differ only by a topological identification beyond the event horizon. This shows that the detector can read out information about the non-local structure even when separated from the non-locality by an event horizon. Our analysis of the dependence of the transition on the detector gap is novel, and in principle presents an interesting observational signal.