Narrow Results

The information paradox results from the traditional picture of a black hole, where all the matter is pulled to the centeral position r = 0. The paradox is resolved in string theory by the fuzzball paradigm: microstates in string theory are fuzzballs with no horizon or singularity, and radiate from their surface just like normal bodies. One can then ask the question: what happens when an object falls onto the fuzzball surface? The conjecture of fuzzball complementarity shows how the dynamics of this surface can have a dual description where the object appears to approximately fall through empty space. The firewall argument attempts to rule out such a free infall description, but the argument starts with contradictory postulates: it assumes that information comes out of the hole, yet its postulates do not allow this unless we violate causality.