English

Species Entropy and Thermodynamics

High Energy Physics - Theory 2023-10-12 v3

Abstract

We analyse particle species and the species scale in quantum gravity from a thermodynamic perspective. In close analogy to black hole thermodynamics, we propose that particle species own an entropy and a temperature, which is determined by the species scale. This is identical to the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of a corresponding minimal black hole and agrees with the number of species in a given tower of states. Through the species entropy, we find that certain entropy bounds are connected to recent swampland constraints. Moreover, the concept of species entropy and temperature allow us to formulate the laws of species thermodynamics, which are argued to govern the variations of moduli in string theory. They can be viewed as general rules that imply certain swampland conjectures, and vice versa.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2305.10489,
  title  = {Species Entropy and Thermodynamics},
  author = {Niccolò Cribiori and Dieter Lust and Carmine Montella},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.10489},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

31 pages; v2: minor modifications, typos fixed, refs added; v3: section 3.3 removed, additional clarifications on species thermodynamics added, published version