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On the nature of black hole entropy

Ted Jacobson

Abstract

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. Implications for the nature of the Bekenstein bound are discussed, and in particular the case for a holographic principle is challenged. Finally, a generalization of black hole thermodynamics to "partial event horizons" in general spacetimes without black holes is proposed.

On the nature of black hole entropy

Abstract

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. Implications for the nature of the Bekenstein bound are discussed, and in particular the case for a holographic principle is challenged. Finally, a generalization of black hole thermodynamics to "partial event horizons" in general spacetimes without black holes is proposed.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 13 sections, 1 equation, 1 figure.

Table of Contents

  1. Black hole entropy and internal states
  2. Black hole entropy and surface states
  3. Objections
  4. Nature of the Bekenstein Bound
  5. Black hole entropy without black holes
  6. Concluding Remarks
  7. Acknowledgements

Figures (1)

  • Figure 1: ( a) Schwarzschild-AdS spacetime. The conformal boundary is the pair of thick vertical lines. A single copy of the Yang-Mills theory on the boundary may just correspond to the gravity theory in the shaded wedge. ( b) Black hole formation and evaporation in Anti-de Sitter spacetime. The algebra of observables ${\cal A}_2$ may be a proper subalgebra of ${\cal A}_2$.