Introduction to Black Hole Microscopy

Abstract

The aim of these notes is both to review the standard understanding of the Hawking effect, and to discuss the modifications to this understanding that might be required by new physics at short distances. The fundamentals of the Unruh effect are reviewed, and then the Hawking effect is explained as a ``gravitational Unruh effect", with particular attention to the state-dependence of this picture. The order of magnitude of deviations from the thermal spectrum of Hawking radiation is estimated under various hypotheses on physics at short distances. The behavior of black hole radiation in a linear model with altered short distance physics---the Unruh model---is discussed in detail. [Based on lectures given at the First Mexican School on Gravitation and Mathematical Physics, Guanajuato, December 1994.]