We review recent studies of contact and thermodynamic geometry for black holes in AdS spacetimes in the extended thermodynamics framework. The cosmological constant gives rise to the notion of pressure $P = -Λ/ 8 π$ and, subsequently a conjugate volume $V$, thereby leading to a close analogy with hydrostatic thermodynamic systems. To begin with, we review the contact geometry approach to thermodynamics in general and then consider thermodynamic metrics constructed as the Hessians of various thermodynamic potentials. We then study their correspondence to statistical ensembles for systems with two-dimensional spaces of equilibrium states. From the zeroes and divergences of the curvature scalar obtained from the metric, we carefully analyze the issue of ensemble non-equivalence and show certain complimentary behaviors in the description of a thermodynamic system. Following a thorough analysis of the familiar van der Waals system, we turn our attention to black holes in extended phase space. Considering the example of charged AdS black holes, we discuss the generic features of their thermodynamic geometry in detail. The relationship of the thermodynamic curvature(s) with critical points as well as microscopic interactions in black holes is also briefly explored. We finally set up the thermodynamic geometry for finite temperature gauge theories dual to black holes in AdS via holographic correspondence and comment on recent progress.
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.
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…
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 study the nonsingular black hole in Anti de-Sitter background taking the negative cosmological constant as the pressure of the system. We investigate the horizon structure, and find the critical values $m_0$ and $\tilde{k}_0$, such that $m>m_0$ (or $\tilde{k}<\tilde{k}_0$) corresponds to a black solution with two horizons, namely the Cauchy horizon $x_-$ and the event horizon $x_+$. For $m=m_0$ (or $\tilde{k}=\tilde{k}_0$), there exist an extremal black hole with degenerate horizon $x_0=x_{\pm}$ and for $m<m_0$ (or $\tilde{k}>\tilde{k}_0$), no black hole solution exists. In turn, we calcula…
The connection between black hole thermodynamics and chemistry is extended to the lower-dimensional regime by considering the rotating and charged BTZ metric in the $(2+1)$-D and a $(1+1)$-D limits of Einstein gravity. The Smarr relation is naturally upheld in both BTZ cases, where those with $Q \ne 0$ violate the Reverse Isoperimetric Inequality and are thus superentropic. The inequality can be maintained, however, with the addition of a new thermodynamic work term associated with the mass renormalization scale. The $D\rightarrow 0$ limit of a generic $D+2$-dimensional Einstein gravity theory…
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 inequal…
The EGB is an outcome of quadratic curvature corrections to the Einstein-Hilbert gravity action in the form of a Gauss-Bonnet (GB) term in $ D > 4$ dimensions, and EGB gravity is topologically invariant in $4D$. Several ways have been proposed for regularizing the $ D \to 4 $ limit of EGB for non-trivial gravitational dynamics in $ 4D $. Motivated by the importance of AdS/CFT, we obtain an exact static spherically symmetric nonsingular black hole in $4D$ EGB gravity coupled to the nonlinear electrodynamics (NED) in an AdS spacetime. We interpret the negative cosmological constant $Λ$ as the po…
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…
In this paper we discuss a formulation of extended phase space thermodynamics of black holes in Anti de Sitter (AdS) spacetimes from the contact geometry point of view. Thermodynamics of black holes can be understood within the framework of contact geometry as flows of vector fields generated by Hamiltonian functions on equilibrium submanifolds in the extended phase space that naturally incorporates the structure of a contact manifold. Deformations induced by the contact vector fields are used to construct various maps among thermodynamic quantities. Thermodynamic variables and equations of st…
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 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 …
In the subject of black hole chemistry, a broad variety of critical phenomena for charged topological black holes (TBHs) with massive gravitons (within the framework of dRGT massive gravity) is discussed in detail. Since critical behavior and nature of possible phase transition(s) crucially depend on the specific choice of ensemble, and, in order to gain more insight into criticality in the massive gravity framework, we perform our analysis in both the canonical (fixed charge, $Q$) and the grand canonical (fixed potential, $Φ$) ensembles. It is shown that, for charged TBHs in the grand canonic…
We study the thermodynamics of a shell of self-gravitating radiation, bounded by two spherical surfaces. This system provides a consistent model for a gravitating thermal reservoir for different solutions to vacuum Einstein equations in the shell's interior. The latter include black holes and flat space, hence, this model allows for the study of black hole phase transitions. Following the analysis of arXiv:1103.3898 , we show that the inclusion of appropriate entropy terms to the spacetime boundaries (including the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy for black hole horizons) leads to a consistent therm…
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…
Quantum fluctuations of matter fields contribute to the thermal entropy of black holes. For free minimally-coupled scalar and spinor fields, this contribution is precisely the entanglement entropy. For gauge fields, Kabat found an extra negative divergent "contact term" with no known statistical interpretation. We compare this contact term to a similar term that arises for nonminimally-coupled scalar fields. Although both divergences may be interpreted as terms in the Wald entropy, we point out that the contact term for gauge fields comes from a gauge-dependent ambiguity in Wald's formula. Rev…
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.
We compare the one-loop corrections to the entropy of a black hole, from quantum fields of spin zero, one-half, and one, to the entropy of entanglement of the fields. For fields of spin zero and one-half the black hole entropy is identical to the entropy of entanglement. For spin one the two entropies differ by a contact interaction with the horizon which appears in the black hole entropy but not in the entropy of entanglement. The contact interaction can be expressed as a path integral over particle paths which begin and end on the horizon; it is the field theory limit of the interaction prop…
In this work the \textit{chemistry} of asymptotically AdS black hole, charged and uncharged, solutions of Pure Lovelock gravity is discussed. For this the mass parameter of black holes is identified with the enthalpy of the system together with the promotion of the cosmological constant to a thermodynamics variable proportional to the \textit{pressure} of the system. The equations of state for both, charged and uncharged, are obtained. It is shown that the charged case behaves as a Van der Waals fluid. The existence of a first order phase transition between small stable/large stable black hole…
We investigate the three-dimensional behavior of gravity coupled to a dynamical unit timelike vector: the aether, and present two new classes of exact charged solutions. When c_{13}=0,Λ'=0$, we find the solutions is the usual BTZ black hole but now with an universal horizon. In the frame of black hole chemistry, we then calculate the temperature of the universal horizons and, construct the Smarr formulas and first law in the three cases: quasi-asymptotically flat, aether asymptotically flat and quasi-BTZ black hole spacetime. We found these universal horizons obey an exact (or slightly modifie…
We analyze certain aspects of BTZ black holes in massive theory of gravity. The black hole solution is obtained by using the Vainshtein and dRGT mechanism, which is asymptotically AdS with an electric charge. We study the Hawking radiation using the tunneling formalism as well as analyze the black hole chemistry for such system. Subsequently, we use the thermodynamic pressure-volume diagram to explore the efficiency of the Carnot heat engine for this system. Some of the important features arising from our solution include the non-existence of quantum effects, critical Van der Walls behaviour, …
We show that spinless and neutral black holes in thermal equilibrium with radiation undergo fluctuations of charge and angular momentum. The corresponding spreads for a black hole in contact with charged scalar particles is calculated. The angular momentum spread turns out to grow with the size of the cavity. Charge spread does not depend either on the size of the cavity nor on the elementary charge of the field. Then, either the scale of the elementary chage is fixed by black hole physics $α\sim 1/4π$ or the underlying physics of these fluctuations is not the random absorption and emission of…
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…
We study a stationary and axisymmetric binary system composed of two identical Kerr black holes, whose physical parameters satisfy the Smarr thermodynamic formula. Then, we use the formalism of geometrothermodynamics to show that the spatial distance between the black holes must be considered as a thermodynamic variable. We investigate the main thermodynamic properties of the system by using the contact structure of the phase space, which generates the first law of thermodynamics and the equilibrium conditions. The phase transition structure of the system is investigated through the curvature …
Newtonian gravitation with some slight modifications, along with some highly simplified ideas from quantum field theory allow us to reproduce, at least at the level of back-of-the-envelope calculations, many results of black hole physics. We consider particle production by a black hole, the Newtonian equivalent of the Hawking temperature, and the Bekenstein entropy. Also, we are able to deduce Newtonian field equations from entropy. We finally study higher-order Newtonian theories under the same assumptions used for ordinary Newtonian theory. In a companion article we will look at entropic for…
In this talk, I present and discuss a number of attempts to construct black hole solutions in models with Warped Extra Dimensions. Then, a contact is made with models with Large Extra Dimensions, where black-hole solutions are easily constructed -- here the focus will be on the properties of microscopic black holes and the possibility of using phenomena associated with them, such as the emission of Hawking radiation, to discover fundamental properties of our spacetime.
A Hamilton-Jacobi formalism for thermodynamics was formulated by Rajeev [Ann. Phys. 323, 2265 (2008)] based on the contact structure of the odd dimensional thermodynamic phase space. This allows one to derive the equations of state of a family of substances by solving a Hamilton-Jacobi equation (HJE). In the same work it was applied to chargeless non-rotating black holes, and the use of Born-Infeld electromagnetism was proposed to apply it to charged black holes as well. This paper fulfills this suggestion by deriving the HJE for charged non-rotating black holes using Born-Infeld theory and a …
Many present-day galaxies are known to harbor supermassive, >10^6 Mo, black holes. These central black holes must have grown through accretion from less massive seeds in the early universe. The molecules CO and H2 can be used to trace this young population of accreting massive black holes through the X-ray irradiation of ambient gas. The X-rays drive a low-metallicity ion-molecule chemistry that leads to the formation and excitation of CO and H2 in 100<T<1,000 K gas. H2 traces very low metallicity gas, ~10^-3 solar or less, while some pollution by metals, ~10^-2 solar or more, must have taken …
Spectroscopy is a fundamental tool in science which consists in studying the response of a system as a function of frequency. Among its many applications in Physics, Biology, Chemistry and other fields, the possibility of identifying objects and structures through their emission spectra is remarkable and incredibly useful. In this paper we apply the spectroscopy idea to a numerically simulated hydrodynamical flow, with the goal of developing a new, non-invasive flow measurement technique. Our focus lies on an irrotational draining vortex, which can be seen, under specific conditions, as the an…
We search for all Poisson brackets for the BTZ black hole which are consistent with the geometry of the commutative solution and are of lowest order in the embedding coordinates. For arbitrary values for the angular momentum we obtain two two-parameter families of contact structures. We obtain the symplectic leaves, which characterize the irreducible representations of the noncommutative theory. The requirement that they be invariant under the action of the isometry group restricts to $R\times S^1$ symplectic leaves, where $R$ is associated with the Schwarzschild time. Quantization may then le…
TeV-scale gravity theories allow the possibility of producing small black holes at energies that soon will be explored at the LHC or at the Auger observatory. One of the expected signatures is the detection of Hawking radiation, that might eventually terminate if the black hole, once perturbed, leaves the brane. Here, we study how the `black hole plus brane' system evolves once the black hole is given an initial velocity, that mimics, for instance, the recoil due to the emission of a graviton. The results of our dynamical analysis show that the brane bends around the black hole, suggesting tha…
In this paper, we study the thermodynamic geometry of charged Gauss-Bonnet black holes (and Reissner-Nordström black holes, for the sake of comparison) in AdS: in both $(T,V)$- and $(S,P)$-planes. The thermodynamic phase space is known to have an underlying contact and metric structure; Ruppeiner geometry then naturally arises in this framework. Sign of Ruppeiner curvature can be used to probe the nature of interactions between the black hole microstructures. It is found that there are both attraction and repulsion dominated regions which are in general determined by the electric charge, Gauss…
We propose a method to extend into the bulk asymptotically flat static spherically symmetric brane-world metrics. We employ the multipole (1/r) expansion in order to allow exact integration of the relevant equations along the (fifth) extra coordinate and make contact with the parameterized post-Newtonian formalism. We apply our method to three families of solutions previously appeared as candidates of black holes in the brane world and show that the shape of the horizon is very likely a flat ``pancake'' for astrophysical sources.
I give a fairly systematic and thorough presentation of the case for regarding black holes as thermodynamic systems in the fullest sense, aimed at students and non-specialists and not presuming advanced knowledge of quantum gravity. I pay particular attention to (i) the availability in classical black hole thermodynamics of a well-defined notion of adiabatic intervention; (ii) the power of the membrane paradigm to make black hole thermodynamics precise and to extend it to local-equilibrium contexts; (iii) the central role of Hawking radiation in permitting black holes to be in thermal contact …
We studied the process of decoherence in acoustic black holes. We focused on the ion trap model proposed by Horstmann et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 250403 (2010)) but the formalism is general to any experimental implementation. For that particular setup, we computed the decoherence time for the experimental parameters that they proposed. We found that a quantum to classical transition occurs during the measurement and we proposed improved parameters to avoid such a feature. We also studied the entanglement between the Hawking-pair phonons for an acoustic black hole while in contact with a rese…
Nonlinear dynamics in cosmological backgrounds has the potential to teach us immensely about our universe, and also to serve as prototype for nonlinear processes in generic curved spacetimes. Here we report on dynamical evolutions of black holes in asymptotically de Sitter spacetimes. We focus on the head-on collision of equal mass binaries and for the first time compare analytical and perturbative methods with full blown nonlinear simulations. Our results include an accurate determination of the merger/scatter transition (consequence of an expanding background) for small mass binaries and a t…
