How to interpret black hole entropy?

J. Makela; P. Repo

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arXiv · gr-qc/9812075

How to interpret black hole entropy?

J. Makela·P. Repo

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Abstract

We consider a possibility that the entropy of a Schwarzschild black hole has two different interpretations: The black hole entropy can be understood either as an outcome of a huge degeneracy in the mass eigenstates of the hole, or as a consequence of the fact that the interior region of black hole spacetime is separated from the exterior region by a horizon. In the latter case, no degeneracy in the mass eigenstates needs to be assumed. Our investigation is based on calculations performed with Lorentzian partition functions obtained for a whole maximally extended Schwarzschild spacetime, and for its right-hand-side exterior region. To check the correctness of our analysis we reproduce, in the leading order approximation, the Bekenstein--Hawking entropy of the Schwarzschild black hole.

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J. Makela, P. Repo. 1998-12-21. How to interpret black hole entropy?. https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9812075

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