Journal of High Energy Physics (Oct 2024)

Rényi second laws for black holes

  • Alice Bernamonti,
  • Federico Galli,
  • Robert C. Myers,
  • Ignacio A. Reyes

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2024)177
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2024, no. 10
pp. 1 – 50

Abstract

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Abstract Hawking’s black hole area theorem provides a geometric realization of the second law of thermodynamics and constrains gravitational processes. In this work we explore a one-parameter extension of this constraint formulated in terms of the monotonicity properties of Rényi entropies. We focus on black hole mergers in asymptotically AdS space and determine new restrictions which these Rényi second laws impose on the final state. We evaluate the entropic inequalities starting from the thermodynamic ensembles description of black hole geometries, and find that for many situations they set more stringent bounds than those imposed by the area increase theorem.

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