Researcher Collab

Entropy of Causal Horizons

arXiv (Cornell University)

We analyze spacetimes with horizons and study the thermodynamic aspects of causal horizons, suggesting that the resemblance between gravitational and thermodynamic systems has a deeper quantum mechanical origin. We find that the observer dependence of such horizons is a direct consequence of associating a temperature and entropy to a spacetime. The geometrical picture of a horizon acting as a one-way membrane for information flow can be accepted as a natural interpretation of assigning a quantum field theory to a spacetime with boundary, ultimately leading to a close connection with thermodynamics.

Authors: Eric Howard

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1609.09795

Publish Year: 2016