Related papers: Statistical physics of black holes as quantum-mech…
To ask a question about a black hole in quantum gravity, one must restrict initial or boundary data to ensure that a black hole is actually present. For two-dimensional dilaton gravity, and probably a much wider class of theories, I show…
We develop a method for computing the free-energy of a canonical ensemble of quantum fields near the horizon of a rotating black hole. We show that the density of energy levels of a quantum field on a stationary background can be related to…
To ask a question about a black hole in quantum gravity, one must restrict initial or boundary data to ensure that a black hole is actually present. For two-dimensional dilaton gravity, and probably a much wider class of theories as well,…
Quantum theory of geometry, developed recently in the framework of non-perturbative quantum gravity, is used in an attempt to explain thermodynamics of Schwarzschild black holes on the basis of a microscopical (quantum) description of the…
We construct an infinite family of microstates for black holes in Minkowski spacetime which have effective semiclassical descriptions in terms of collapsing dust shells in the black hole interior. Quantum mechanical wormholes cause these…
In loop quantum gravity, the quantum geometry of a black hole horizon consist of discrete non-perturbative quantum geometric excitations (or punctures) labeled by spins, which are responsible for the quantum area of the horizon. If these…
We analyze the statistical mechanics of a gas of neutral and charged black holes. The microcanonical ensemble is the only possible approach to this system, and the equilibrium configuration is the one for which most of the energy is carried…
It is commonplace, in the literature, to find that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy has been endowed with having an explicit statistical interpretation. In the following essay, we discuss why such a viewpoint warrants a certain degree of…
Black holes behave as thermodynamic systems, and a central task of any quantum theory of gravity is to explain these thermal properties. A statistical mechanical description of black hole entropy once seemed remote, but today we suffer an…
One of the challenges of today's theoretical physics is to fully understand the connection between a geometrical object like area and a thermostatistical one like entropy, since area behaves analogously like entropy. The Bekenstein bound…
The basic assumption of the induced gravity approach is that Einstein theory is an effective, low energy-form of a quantum theory of constituents. In this approach the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy S^{BH} of a black hole can be interpreted as…
Although we know that black holes are characterized by a temperature and an entropy, we do not yet have a satisfactory microscopic ``statistical mechanical'' explanation for black hole thermodynamics. I describe a new approach that…
We consider the superconformal quantum mechanics associated to BPS black holes in type IIB Calabi-Yau compactifications. This quantum mechanics describes the dynamics of D-branes in the near-horizon attractor geometry of the black hole. In…
One of the remarkable features of black holes is that they possess a thermodynamic description, even though they do not appear to be statistical systems. We use self-gravitating magnetic monopole solutions as tools for understanding the…
The thermodynamics of black holes is shown to be directly induced by their near-horizon conformal invariance. This behavior is exhibited using a scalar field as a probe of the black hole gravitational background, for a general class of…
We discuss the most interesting approaches to derivation of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy formula from a statistical theory.
A black hole considered as a part of a thermodynamical system possesses the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy $S_H =A_H /(4l_{\mbox{\scriptsize{P}}}^2)$, where $A_H$ is the area of a black hole surface and $l_{\,\mbox{\scriptsize{P}}}$ is the…
We give a brief overview of black hole entropy, covering a few main developments since Bekenstein's original proposal
An action principle for spacetimes with the topology of an Euclidean black-hole is given. The gravitational field is described by the ordinary volume degrees of freedom plus additional surface fields at the horizon. The surface degrees of…
We review aspects of the thermodynamics of black holes and in particular take into account the fact that the quantum entanglement between the degrees of freedom of a scalar field, traced inside the event horizon, can be the origin of black…