Probing black holes in nonperturbative gauge theory

We use a 0-brane to probe a ten-dimensional near-extremal black hole with N units of 0-brane charge. We work directly in dual strongly coupled quantum mechanics, using mean-field methods to describe the black hole background nonperturbatively. We obtain the distribution of W boson masses, and find a clear separation between light and heavy degrees of freedom. To localize the probe we introduce a resolving time and integrate out the heavy modes. After a nontrivial change of coordinates, the effective potential for the probe agrees with supergravity expectations. We compute the entropy of the probe, and find that the stretched horizon of the black hole arises dynamically in quantum mechanics, as thermal restoration of unbroken U(N+1) gauge symmetry. Our analysis of quantum mechanics predicts the correct relation between the horizon radius and entropy of a black hole.