English

Gravitational Entropy and Global Structure

High Energy Physics - Theory 2009-10-31 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

The underlying reason for the existence of gravitational entropy is traced to the impossibility of foliating topologically non-trivial Euclidean spacetimes with a time function to give a unitary Hamiltonian evolution. In dd dimensions the entropy can be expressed in terms of the d2d-2 obstructions to foliation, bolts and Misner strings, by a universal formula. We illustrate with a number of examples including spaces with nut charge. In these cases, the entropy is not just a quarter the area of the bolt, as it is for black holes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/9808085,
  title  = {Gravitational Entropy and Global Structure},
  author = {S. W. Hawking and C. J. Hunter},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9808085},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

18 pages. References added