Snowmass White Paper: Micro- and Macro-Structure of Black Holes

Abstract: The black-hole information paradox provides a stringent test of would-be theories of quantum gravity. String theory has made significant progress toward a resolution of this paradox, and has led to the fuzzball and microstate geometry programs. The central thesis of these programs is that only string theory has sufficiently many degrees of freedom to resolve black-hole microstructure, and that horizons and singularities are artifacts of attempting to describe gravity using a theory that has too few degrees of freedom to resolve the physics. Fuzzballs and microstate geometries recast black holes within string theory as horizonless and singularity-free objects that not only resolve the paradox but provide new insight into the underlying microstructure. We give an overview of this approach, summarize its current status and describe future prospects and insights that are now within reach.