  In recent years a statistical mechanics description of particles, fields and
spacetime based on the concept of quantum open systems and the influence
functional formalism has been introduced. It reproduces in full the established
theory of quantum fields in curved spacetime and contains also a microscopic
description of their statistical properties, such as noise, fluctuations,
decoherence, and dissipation. This new framework allows one to explore the
quantum statistical properties of spacetime at the interface between the
semiclassical and quantum gravity regimes, as well as important non-equilibrium
processes in the early universe and black holes, such as particle creation,
entropy generation, galaxy formation, Hawking radiation, gravitational
collapse, backreaction and the black hole end-state and information lost
issues. Here we give a summary of the theory of correlation dynamics of quantum
fields and describe how this conceptual scheme coupled with scaling behavior
near the infrared limit can shed light on the black hole information paradox.
