Related papers: Black Hole Thermodynamics from Euclidean Horizon C…
To derive black hole thermodynamics in any quantum theory of gravity, one must introduce constraints that ensure that a black hole is actually present. For a large class of black holes, the imposition of such ``horizon constraints'' allows…
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…
Black hole entropy appears to be ``universal''--many independent calculations, involving models with very different microscopic degrees of freedom, all yield the same density of states. I discuss the proposal that this universality comes…
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…
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,…
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…
A key test of any quantum theory of gravity is its ability to reproduce the known thermodynamic properties of black holes. A statistical mechanical description of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy once seemed remote, but today we suffer an…
String theory and ``quantum geometry'' have recently offered independent statistical mechanical explanations of black hole thermodynamics. But these successes raise a new problem: why should models with such different microscopic degrees of…
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…
It is a common belief now that the explanation of the microscopic origin of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of black holes should be available in quantum gravity theory, whatever this theory will finally look like. Calculations of the…
In this note we consider a stringy description of black hole horizon. We start with a nonlinear sigma model defined on a two dimensional Euclidean surface with background Rindler metric. By solving the field equations, we show that to the…
I argue that black hole entropy counts only those states of a black hole that can influence the outside, and attempt (with only partial success) to defend this claim against various objections, all but one coming from string theory.…
Black holes exist all over our Universe, possessing a very wide range of masses. At the moment, they serve as a probe to test general relativity at astrophysical scales, but in the future they may also give us information about gravity at…
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…
The Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is a cornerstone of horizon thermodynamics but quantum effects correct it, while inequivalent entropies arise also in non-extensive thermodynamics. Reviewing our previous work, we advocate for a new entropy…
The Bekenstein-Hawking black hole area entropy law suggests that the quantum degrees of freedom of black holes may be realized as projections of quantum states unto the event horizon of the black hole. In this paper, we provide further…
A coarse-grained version of the effective action is used to study the thermodynamics of black holes, interpolating from largest to smallest masses. The physical parameter of the black hole are linked to the running couplings by…
Black holes are thermodynamic objects, but despite recent progress, the ultimate statistical mechanical origin of black hole temperature and entropy remains mysterious. Here I summarize an approach in which the entropy is viewed as arising…
The thermodynamic inconsistency observed in regular black holes is resolved through the framework of reduced thermodynamic phase spaces. We demonstrate that regular black holes are essentially induced from singular black holes by adding an…
I review a new (and still tentative) approach to black hole thermodynamics that seeks to explain black hole entropy in terms of microscopic quantum gravitational boundary states induced on the black hole horizon.