Related papers: Statistical Mechanics and Black Hole Thermodynamic…
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…
Although we have convincing evidence that a black hole bears an entropy proportional to its surface (horizon) area, the ``statistical mechanical'' explanation of this entropy remains unknown. Two basic questions in this connection are: what…
We have known for more than thirty years that black holes behave as thermodynamic systems, radiating as black bodies with characteristic temperatures and entropies. This behavior is not only interesting in its own right; it could also,…
Modes of physical fields which are located inside a horizon and which cannot be observed by a distant observer are identified with dynamical degrees of freedom of a black hole. A new invariant statistical mechanical definition of a…
Black hole thermodynamics is the area of study that seeks to reconcile the laws of thermodynamics with the existence of black hole event horizons. Here we calculate the entropy corresponding to the interior of a Schwarzschild black hole for…
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 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…
We review some recent advances in black hole thermodynamics, including statistical mechanical origins of black hole entropy and its leading order corrections, from the viewpoints of various quantum gravity theories. We then examine the…
We discuss the quantum mechanics and thermodynamics of the (2+1)-dimensional black hole, using both minisuperspace methods and exact results from Chern-Simons theory. In particular, we evaluate the first quantum correction to the black hole…
The thermodynamical one-loop entropy $S^{TD}$ of a two-dimensional black hole in thermal equilibrium with the massless quantum gas is calculated. It is shown that $S^{TD}$ includes the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, evaluated for the quantum…
The comparison of geometrical properties of black holes with classical thermodynamic variables reveals surprising parallels between the laws of black hole mechanics and the laws of thermodynamics. Since Hawking's discovery that black holes…
To explain black hole thermodynamics in quantum gravity, one must introduce constraints to ensure that a black hole is actually present. I show that for a large class of black holes, such ``horizon constraints'' allow the use of conformal…
We discuss the connection between different entropies introduced for black hole. It is demonstrated on the two-dimensional example that the (quantum) thermodynamical entropy of a hole coincides (including UV-finite terms) with its…
Black holes monopolize nowadays the center stage of fundamental physics. Yet, they are poorly understood objects. Notwithstanding, from their generic properties, one can infer important clues to what a fundamental theory, a theory that…
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.
The concept of black hole entropy is one of the most important enigmas of theoretical physics. It relates thermodynamics to gravity and allows substantial hints toward a quantum theory of gravitation. Although Bekenstein conjecture…
We discuss and compare different definitions of the entropy of a black hole. In particular we show that the thermodynamical entropy defined by the response of the free energy of a black hole to the change of temperature does not coincide…
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…
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…
I review some recent work in which the quantum states of string theory which are associated with certain black holes have been identified and counted. For large black holes, the number of states turns out to be precisely the exponential of…