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29 March 2024
 
  » arxiv » gr-qc/9705006

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The Statistical Mechanics of Black Hole Thermodynamics
Rafael D. Sorkin ;
Date 5 May 1997
Journal in Black Holes and Relativistic Stars, edited by R.M. Wald (University of Chicago Press, 1998)
Subject gr-qc hep-th
AffiliationICN-UNAM and Syracuse University
AbstractAlthough 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 is the microscopic origin of the entropy, and why does the law of entropy increase continue to hold when the horizon entropy is included? After a review of some of the difficulties in answering these questions, I propose an explanation of the law of entropy increase which comes near to a proof in the context of the ``semi-classical’’ approximation, and which also provides a proof in full quantum gravity under the assumption that the latter fulfills certain natural expectations, like the existence of a conserved energy definable at infinity. This explanation seems to require a fundamental spacetime discreteness in order for the entropy to be consistently finite, and I recall briefly some of the ideas for what the discreteness might be. If such ideas are right, then our knowledge of the horizon entropy will allow us to ``count the atoms of spacetime’’.
Source arXiv, gr-qc/9705006
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