We review recent developments on the thermodynamics of black holes in extended phase space, where the cosmological constant is interpreted as thermodynamic pressure and treated as a thermodynamic variable in its own right. In this approach, the mass of the black hole is no longer regarded as internal energy, rather it is identified with the chemical enthalpy. This leads to an extended dictionary for black hole thermodynamic quantities, in particular a notion of thermodynamic volume emerges for a given black hole spacetime. This volume is conjectured to satisfy the reverse isoperimetric inequality - an inequality imposing a bound on the amount of entropy black hole can carry for a fixed thermodynamic volume. New thermodynamic phase transitions naturally emerge from these identifications. Namely, we show that black holes can be understood from the viewpoint of chemistry, in terms of concepts such as Van der Waals fluids, reentrant phase transitions, and triple points. We also review the recent attempts at extending the AdS/CFT dictionary in this setting, discuss the connections with horizon thermodynamics, applications to Lifshitz spacetimes, and outline possible future directions in this field.
We study evolution and thermodynamics of a slow-roll transition between early and late time de Sitter phases, both in the homogeneous case and in the presence of a black hole, in a scalar field model with a generic potential having both a maximum and a positive minimum. Asymptotically future de Sitter spacetimes are characterized by ADM charges known as cosmological tensions. We show that the late time de Sitter phase has finite cosmological tension when the scalar field oscillation around its minimum is underdamped, while the cosmological tension in the overdamped case diverges. We compute th…
We study thermodynamics of N=6 superconformal Chern-Simons theory by computing quantum corrections to the free energy. We find that in weakly coupled ABJM theory on R(2) x S(1), the leading correction is non-analytic in the 't Hooft coupling lambda, and is approximately of order lambda^2 log(lambda)^3. The free energy is expressed in terms of the scalar thermal mass m, which is generated by screening effects. We show that this mass vanishes to 1-loop order. We then go on to 2-loop order where we find a finite and positive mass squared m^2. We discuss differences in the calculation between Coul…
We study black-hole thermodynamics in theories that contain dimensionful constants such as the cosmological constant or coupling constants in Wald's formalism. The most natural way to deal with these constants is to promote them to scalar fields introducing a (d-1)-form Lagrange multiplier that forces them to be constant on-shell. These (d-1)-form potentials provide a dual description of them and, in the context of superstring/supergravity theories, a higher-dimensional origin/explanation. In the context of gauged supergravity theories, all these constants can be collected in the embedding ten…
The connection between the bulk and the boundary first law of thermodynamics in adS space has been discussed in generic higher derivative gravity. String theory corrections to the supergravity render higher derivative terms in the bulk action, proportional to different powers of string theory parameter $α'$. A variation in the cosmological constant induces a variation in the 't Hooft coupling in the boundary theory. We show that in order to match the bulk first law and Smarr relation with the boundary side one needs to include the variation of $α'$ in the bulk thermodynamics as a book keeping …
We introduce a new set of chemical variables for the accelerating black hole. We show how these expressions suggest that conical defects emerging from a black hole can be considered as true hair -- a new charge that the black hole can carry -- and discuss the impact of conical deficits on black hole thermodynamics from this `chemical' perspective. We conclude by proving a new {\it Reverse Isoperimetric Inequality} for black holes with conical defects.
Thermodynamic quantities associated with black holes in Anti-de Sitter space obey an interesting identity when the cosmological constant is included as one of the dynamical variables, the generalized Smarr relation. We show that this relation can easily be understood from the point of view of the dual holographic field theory. It amounts to the simple statement that the extensive thermodynamic quantities of a large $N$ gauge theory only depend on the number of colors, $N$, via an overall factor of $N^2$.
Minimal $D=5$ supergravity admits asymptotically globally AdS$_5$ gravitational solitons (strictly stationary, geodesically complete spacetimes with positive mass). We show that, like asymptotically flat gravitational solitons, these solutions satisfy mass and mass variation formulas analogous to those satisfied by AdS black holes. A thermodynamic volume associated to the non-trivial topology of the spacetime plays an important role in this construction. We then consider these solitons within the holographic ``complexity equals action'' and ``complexity equals volume'' conjectures as simple ex…
We study the thermodynamics of an exact hairy black hole solution in Anti-deSitter (AdS) spacetime. We use the counterterm method supplemented with boundary terms for the scalar field to obtain the thermodynamic quantities and stress tensor of the dual field theory. We then extend our analysis by considering a dynamical cosmological constant and verify the isoperimetric inequality. Unlike the thermodynamics of Reissner-Nördstrom (RN) black hole in this `extended' framework, the presence of the scalar field and its self-interaction make also the criticality possible in the grand canonical ensem…
We construct Komar-type integrals for theories of gravity of higher order in the Riemann curvature coupled to simple kinds of matter (scalar and vector fields) and we use them to compute Smarr formulae for black-hole solutions in those theories. The equivalence between f(R) and Brans-Dicke theories is used to argue that the dimensionful parameters that appear in scalar potentials must be interpreted as thermodynamical variables ("pressures") and we give a general expression for their conjugate potentials ("volumes"}.
We investigate the thermodynamics of AdS black holes in Generalized Quasitopological Gravity with and without electric charge, concentrating on the version of the theory that is cubic in curvature. We study new aspects of Hawking-Page transitions that occur for these black holes. Working within the framework of black hole chemistry, we find a variety of familiar and new critical behaviour and phase transitions in four and higher dimensions for the charged black holes. We also consider some holographic aspects of our work, demonstrating how the ratio of viscosity to entropy is modified by inclu…
In the context of Black Hole Chemistry (BHC), holographic phase transitions of asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS) charged topological black holes (TBHs) in massive gravity coupled to Power Maxwell Invariant (PMI) electrodynamics are discussed in the grand canonical (fixed $U(1)$ potential, $Φ$) ensemble. Considering all higher-order graviton's self-interactions of (dRGT) massive gravitational field theory in arbitrary dimensions, exact TBH solutions are derived, the explicit form of the on-shell action is computed, and the associated thermodynamic quantities in the Grand Canonical Ensemble (G…
The description of string-theoretic s-branes at g_s=0 as exact worldsheet CFTs with a (lambda cosh X^0) or (lambda e^(X^0)) boundary interaction is considered. Due to the imaginary-time periodicity of the interaction under X^0 -> X^0 + 2 pi i, these configurations have intriguing similarities to black hole or de Sitter geometries. For example, the open string pair production as seen by an Unruh detector is thermal at temperature T = 1/4 pi. It is shown that, despite the rapid time dependence of the s-brane, there exists an exactly thermal mixed state of open strings. The corresponding boundary…
We perform a thorough study of the thermodynamic properties of a class of Lovelock black holes with conformal scalar hair arising from coupling of a real scalar field to the dimensionally extended Euler densities. We study the linearized equations of motion of the theory and describe constraints under which the theory is free from ghosts/tachyons. We then consider, within the context of black hole chemistry, the thermodynamics of the hairy black holes in the Gauss-Bonnet and cubic Lovelock theories. We clarify the connection between isolated critical points and thermodynamic singularities, fin…
The simplest gravity duals for quantum critical theories with z=2 `Lifshitz' scale invariance admit a marginally relevant deformation. Generic black holes in the bulk describe the field theory with a dynamically generated momentum scale Lambda as well as finite temperature T. We describe the thermodynamics of these black holes in the quantum critical regime where T >> Lambda^2. The deformation changes the asymptotics of the spacetime mildly and leads to intricate UV sensitivities of the theory which we control perturbatively in Lambda^2/T.
We study P-V criticality of black holes in Lovelock gravities in the context of horizon thermodynamics. The corresponding first law of horizon thermodynamics emerges as one of the Einstein-Lovelock equations and assumes the universal (independent of matter content) form dE=TdS-PdV, where P is identified with the total pressure of all matter in the spacetime (including a cosmological constant Lambda if present). We compare this approach to recent advances in extended phase space thermodynamics of asymptotically AdS black holes where the "standard" first law of black hole thermodynamics is exten…
The thermodynamics of a scalar field with a quartic interaction is studied within the linear delta expansion (LDE) method. Using the imaginary-time formalism the free energy is evaluated up to second order in the LDE. The method generates nonperturbative results that are then used to obtain thermodynamic quantities like the pressure. The phase transition pattern of the model is fully studied, from the broken to the symmetry restored phase. The results are compared with those obtained with other nonperturbative methods and also with ordinary perturbation theory. The results coming from the two …
In the context of black hole chemistry, we study the thermodynamics of asymptotically de Sitter black holes with conformal scalar hair in Einstein gravity. The hair parameter allows us to attain thermodynamic equilibrium between the event horizon and the cosmological horizon. We find that the system of the black hole and the de Sitter space surrounding it undergo a Reverse Hawking-Page phase transition provided we consider the grand-canonical ensemble.
This paper studies the thermodynamical stability of regular BHs in AdS5 background. We investigate off-shell free energy of the system as a function of temperature for different values of a "coupling constant" L=4 theta/l^2, where the cosmological constant is Lambda = -3/l^2 and \sqrt{theta} is a "minimal length". The parameter L admits a critical value, L_{inf}=0.2, corresponding to the appearance of an inflexion point in the Hawking temperature. In the weak-coupling regime L < L_{inf}, there are first order phase transitions at different temperatures. Unlike the Hawking-Page case, at tempera…
