Black Holes in Higher Curvature Gravity

TL;DR

The paper surveys black holes in higher curvature gravity viewed as low-energy effective field theory corrections to Einstein gravity. It uses a perturbative expansion around Einstein solutions and Wald's Noether-charge method to derive generalized black hole entropy for diffeomorphism-invariant actions. Higher curvature terms modify thermodynamic relations and can generate scalar hair in some theories, with exact or perturbative black hole solutions found in Lovelock, dilatonic Gauss–Bonnet, and polynomial-$R$ models while avoiding ghosts under certain couplings. The framework connects classical black hole thermodynamics to quantum gravity ideas, offering a robust method to test entropy formulas and horizon dynamics in theories beyond Einstein gravity.

Abstract

A review of recent investigations of black holes in higher curvature theories of gravity.