UC Berkeley

According to the classical Penrose inequality, the mass at spatial infinity is bounded from below by a function of the area of certain trapped surfaces. We exhibit quantum field theory states that violate this relation at the semiclassical level. We formulate a quantum Penrose inequality, by replacing the area with the generalized entropy of the light sheet of an appropriate quantum trapped surface. We perform a number of nontrivial tests of our proposal, and we consider and rule out alternative formulations. We also discuss the relation to weak cosmic censorship.