English

The Bekenstein Bound

High Energy Physics - Theory 2018-05-01 v1

Abstract

Bekenstein's conjectured entropy bound for a system of linear size RR and energy EE, namely S2πERS \leq 2 \pi E R, has counterexamples for many of the ways in which the "system," RR, EE, and SS may be defined. One consistent set of definitions for these quantities in flat Minkowski spacetime is that SS is the total von Neumann entropy and EE is the expectation value of the energy in a "vacuum-outside-RR" quantum state that has the the vacuum expectation values for all operators entirely outside a sphere of radius RR. However, there are counterexamples to the Bekenstein bound for this set of definitions. Nevertheless, an alternative formulation ten years ago by Horacio Casini for the definitions of SS and of 2πER2 \pi E R have finally enabled a proof for this particular formulation of the Bekenstein bound.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1804.10623,
  title  = {The Bekenstein Bound},
  author = {Don N. Page},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.10623},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

Contribution for a memorial volume for Jacob Bekenstein edited by Eliezer Rabinovici, Lars Brink, Slava Mukhanov, and K. K. Phua, to be published by World Scientific

R2 v1 2026-06-23T01:38:28.812Z