  We consider black-hole evaporation from a hidden-variables perspective. It is
suggested that Hawking information loss, associated with the transition from a
pure to a mixed quantum state, is compensated for by the creation of deviations
from Born-rule probabilities outside the event horizon. The resulting states
have non-standard or 'nonequilibrium' distributions of hidden variables, with a
specific observable signature - a breakdown of the sinusoidal modulation of
quantum probabilities for two-state systems. Outgoing Hawking radiation is
predicted to contain statistical anomalies outside the domain of the quantum
formalism. Further, it is argued that even for a macroscopic black hole, if one
half of an entangled EPR-pair should fall behind the event horizon, the other
half will develop similar statistical anomalies. We propose a simple rule,
whereby the relative entropy of the nonequilibrum (hidden-variable)
distribution generated outside the horizon balances the increase in von Neumann
entropy associated with the pure-to-mixed transition. It is argued that there
are relationships between hidden-variable and von Neumann entropies even in
non-gravitational physics. We consider the possibility of observing anomalous
polarisation probabilities, in the radiation from primordial black holes, and
in the atomic cascade emission of entangled photon pairs from black-hole
accretion discs.
