Event horizon - Magnifying glass for Planck length physics

Abstract

An attempt is made to describe the `thermodynamics' of semiclassical spacetime without specifying the detailed `molecular structure' of the quantum spacetime, using the known properties of blackholes. I give detailed arguments, essentially based on the behaviour of quantum systems near the event horizon, which suggest that event horizon acts as a magnifying glass to probe Planck length physics even in those contexts in which the spacetime curvature is arbitrarily low. The quantum state describing a blackhole, in any microscopic description of spacetime, has to possess certain universal form of density of states which can be ascertained from general considerations. Since a blackhole can be formed from the collapse of any physical system with a low energy Hamiltonian H, it is suggested that when such a system collapses to form a blackhole, it should be described by a modified Hamiltonian of the form $H^2_{\rm mod} =A^2 \ln (1+ H^2/A^2)$ where $A^2 \propto E_P^2$.I also show that it is possible to construct several physical systems which have the blackhole density of states and hence will be indistinguishable from a blackhole as far as thermodynamic interactions are concerned. In particular, blackholes can be thought of as one-particle excitations of a class of {\it nonlocal} field theories with the thermodynamics of blackholes arising essentially from the asymptotic form of the dispersion relation satisfied by these excitations. These field theoretic models have correlation functions with a universal short distance behaviour, which translates into the generic behaviour of semiclassical blackholes. Several implications of this paradigm are discussed.