Black Holes and Thermodynamics: The First Half Century
Black hole thermodynamics emerged from the classical general relativistic laws of black hole mechanics, summarized by Bardeen–Carter–Hawking, together with the physical insights by Bekenstein about black hole entropy and the semi-classical derivation by H
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Black Holes and Thermodynamics: The First Half Century Daniel Grumiller, Robert McNees and Jakob Salzer
Abstract Black hole thermodynamics emerged from the classical general relativistic laws of black hole mechanics, summarized by Bardeen–Carter–Hawking, together with the physical insights by Bekenstein about black hole entropy and the semiclassical derivation by Hawking of black hole evaporation. The black hole entropy law inspired the formulation of the holographic principle by ’t Hooft and Susskind, which is famously realized in the gauge/gravity correspondence by Maldacena, Gubser– Klebanov–Polaykov and Witten within string theory. Moreover, the microscopic derivation of black hole entropy, pioneered by Strominger–Vafa within string theory, often serves as a consistency check for putative theories of quantum gravity. In this book chapter we review these developments over five decades, starting in the 1960s. Keywords Black hole thermodynamics · History of black holes · Hawking radiation · Information loss · Holographic principle · Quantum gravity
2.1 Introduction and Prehistory Introductory remarks. The history of black hole thermodynamics is intertwined with the history of quantum gravity. In the absence of experimental data capable of probing Planck scale physics the best we can do is to subject putative theories of quantum gravity to stringent consistency checks. Black hole thermodynamics provides a number of highly non-trivial consistency checks. Perhaps most famously, any theory of quantum gravity that fails to reproduce the Bekenstein–Hawking relation
D. Grumiller (B) · J. Salzer Institute for Theoretical Physics, Vienna University of Technology, Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8-10, 1040 Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] J. Salzer e-mail: [email protected] R. McNees Department of Physics, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL 60660, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 X. Calmet (ed.), Quantum Aspects of Black Holes, Fundamental Theories of Physics 178, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-10852-0_2
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SBH =
k B c3 Ah 4G
(2.1)
between the black hole entropy SBH , the area of the event horizon Ah , and Newton’s constant G would be regarded with a great amount of skepticism (see e.g [1]). In addition to providing a template for the falsification of speculative models of quantum gravity, black hole thermodynamics has also sparked essential developments in the field of quantum gravity and remains a vital source of insight and new ideas. Discussions about information loss, the holographic principle, the microscopic origin of black hole entropy, gravity as an emergent phenomenon, and the more recent firewall paradox all have roots in black hole thermodynamics. Furthermore, it is an interesting subject in its own right, with unusual behavior of specific heat, a rich phenomenology, and remarkable phase transitions between different spacetimes. In this review we summarize the development of black hole thermodynamics chronologically,
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