Stringy Information and Black Holes

Abstract

We show that in string theory, due to non-perturbative effects, there are cases in which two states that semi-classically are completely different, are in fact the same. One state cannot be excited without exciting the other; they are two components of the same state in the exact theory. As a result, in some situations that include black holes, the nature of information in string theory is dramatically different than in field theory. In particular, each general-relativity state, that lives in the atmosphere of black fivebranes, is accompanied with an excitation that lives on folded strings, which fill the black-hole interior. This is likely related to the way that information is extracted from black holes in string theory, and we refer to it as stringy information.