English

Entropy and Area

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-10-22 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Lattice

Abstract

The ground state density matrix for a massless free field is traced over the degrees of freedom residing inside an imaginary sphere; the resulting entropy is shown to be proportional to the area (and not the volume) of the sphere. Possible connections with the physics of black holes are discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9303048,
  title  = {Entropy and Area},
  author = {Mark Srednicki},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9303048},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

10 pages, in Plain TeX with one figure included, LBL-33754. (Revised version adds an important reference and corrects minor typos.)