  Pulsars are some of the most accurate clocks found in nature, while black
holes offer a unique arena for the study of quantum gravity. As such,
pulsar-black hole (PSR-BH) binaries provide ideal astrophysical systems for
detecting the effects of quantum gravity. With the success of aLIGO and the
advent of instruments like the SKA and eLISA, the prospects for the discovery
of such PSR-BH binaries are very promising. We argue that PSR-BH binaries can
serve as ready-made testing grounds for proposed resolutions to the black hole
information paradox. We propose using timing signals from a pulsar beam passing
through the region near a black hole event horizon as a probe of quantum
gravitational effects. In particular, we demonstrate that fluctuations of the
geometry outside a black hole lead to an increase in the measured root mean
square deviation of the arrival times of pulsar pulses traveling near the
horizon. This allows for a clear observational test of the nonviolent
nonlocality proposal for black hole information escape. For a series of pulses
traversing the near-horizon region, this model predicts an rms in pulse arrival
times of $\sim30\ \mu$s for a $3 M_\odot$ black hole, $\sim0.3\, $ms for a $30
M_\odot$ black hole, and $\sim40\, $s for Sgr A*. The current precision of
pulse time-of-arrival measurements is sufficient to discern these rms
fluctuations. This work is intended to motivate observational searches for
PSR-BH systems as a means of testing models of quantum gravity.

High Energy Physics - Theory;High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena;General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology