The Firewall Paradox

In this MSc. thesis, we have attempted to give an overview of the firewall paradox and various approaches towards its resolution. After an introductory chapter on some basic concepts in quantum field theory in curved spacetimes such as Hawking radiation, we introduce the paradox. It arises out of application of principles each of which is thought or assumed to be correct: 1) unitary black hole evaporation, 2) validity of quantum field theory in curved spacetime, 3) a measure of the number of black hole quantum states, 4) Einstein’s equivalence principle. Then, we present various approaches that exist in the literature towards the resolution of the paradox.