Quantum nucleation of black hole mimickers via chaos dominated tunneling

Abstract

Black hole mimickers, ultracompact horizonless objects, have been proposed as alternatives to black holes in a variety of settings, including extensions of general relativity and scenarios involving matter sectors beyond the Standard Model. Their formation in gravitational collapse of matter requires quantum mechanical tunneling to occur on a length scale of the order of the Schwarzschild radius of the corresponding black hole. We propose a mechanism, based on multichannel enhancement catalyzed by quantum chaotic dynamics, that can dramatically amplify the quantum mechanical transmission across a tunneling barrier. We explore, in particular, how the nucleation of a string theoretic black shell is enhanced via this mechanism. We anticipate similar results to hold for other proposed black hole mimickers.