English

Generalised focusing theorem and dynamical horizon entropy in diffeomorphism-invariant theories

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2025-09-03 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

I summarise recent progress on light-ray focusing and horizon thermodynamics in general diffeomorphism-invariant theories of gravity coupled to bosonic matter. In pure gravity and with scalar or vector fields, the null-null gravitational equation of motion on a linearly perturbed Killing horizon generalises the Raychaudhuri equation, defining a generalised expansion that never increases under the null energy condition. This proves a generalised focusing theorem and defines an increasing horizon entropy (Wall entropy). When higher-spin fields are present, the generalised focusing theorem persists subject to a "higher-spin focusing condition", which I propose as a physical consistency constraint on higher-spin theories.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.00628,
  title  = {Generalised focusing theorem and dynamical horizon entropy in diffeomorphism-invariant theories},
  author = {Zihan Yan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.00628},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

5 pages, submitted to the Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation (GR24) and the 16th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves (Amaldi16)