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arXiv · 2606.26370

Thermodynamics of thin-shell wormholes

Abstract

We develop a unified thermodynamic description of dynamic thin-shell wormholes, starting from the transparent (vacuum bulk) case and then relaxing the transparency condition to include bulk matter crossing the throat. For isolated shells, we show that the entropy is conserved under transparent evolution, $TdS=0$, which holds for arbitrary dynamical motion of the throat within the assumptions of the thin-shell formalism. When bulk matter is present, the generalised first law becomes $T\dot{S}=A\Phi$, where $\Phi$ is the net energy flux; entropy increases (decreases) when matter flows into (out of) the shell. Explicit expressions for the flux are provided for null dust and massless scalar fields, and quantum pair production (Hawking-like emission) is also discussed. A formulation of the generalised second law is presented, and it is consistent with standard thermodynamic expectations under conditions where heat flows from hotter to colder regions. As a concrete astrophysical application, we study accretion of null dust: the critical accretion rate above which the throat becomes dynamically unstable depends sensitively on the spacetime geometry and the shell equation of state, highlighting the environmental dependence of these configurations. Fluctuations in the energy flux induce a stochastic force on the throat dynamics, leading to a Langevin description with an associated fluctuation-dissipation relation. This results in diffusion of the throat radius and additional entropy production. The framework applies to a broad class of spherically symmetric thin-shell constructions within general relativity. Our results provide evidence that thin-shell wormholes admit a consistent thermodynamic description, quantify their sensitivity to accretion processes, and suggest possible avenues for probing exotic compact objects with future gravitational wave observations.

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BibTeXRIS

Francisco S. N. Lobo, Manuel E. Rodrigues. 2026-06-24. Thermodynamics of thin-shell wormholes. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.26370

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