English

Microscopic origin of the entropy of black holes in general relativity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2023-10-18 v4 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We construct an infinite family of microstates with geometric interiors for eternal black holes in general relativity with negative cosmological constant in any dimension. Wormholes in the Euclidean path integral for gravity cause these states to have small, but non-zero, quantum mechanical overlaps that have a universal form. The overlaps have a dramatic consequence: the microstates span a Hilbert space of log dimension equal to the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. The semiclassical microstates we construct contain Einstein-Rosen bridges of arbitrary size behind their horizons. Our results imply that all these bridges can be interpreted as quantum superpositions of wormholes of size at most exponential in the entropy.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2212.02447,
  title  = {Microscopic origin of the entropy of black holes in general relativity},
  author = {Vijay Balasubramanian and Albion Lawrence and Javier M. Magan and Martin Sasieta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.02447},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

46 pages + appendices. v4: minor edits, added references