From Uneventful Horizon to Firewall in D-Dimensional Effective Theory

Abstract

Assuming the standard effective-field-theoretic formulation of Hawking radiation, we show explicitly how a generic effective theory predicts a firewall from an initially uneventful horizon for a spherically symmetric, uncharged black hole in $D$ dimensions for $D \geq 4$. The firewall is created via higher-derivative interactions within the scrambling time after the collapsing matter enters the trapping horizon. This result manifests the trans-Planckian problem of Hawking radiation and demonstrates the incompatibility between Hawking radiation and the uneventful horizon.