Steve Carlip (UC Davis), BLACK HOLE ENTROPY FROM HORIZON CONSTRAINTS

Europe/London
Description
To describe black hole thermodynamics in any quantum theory of gravity, one must introduce constraints that ensure that a black hole is actually present. I show that for a very large class of dilaton black holes, the inclusion of such ``horizon constraints'' allows us to use conformal field theory techniques to compute the density of states, reproducing the correct Bekenstein-Hawking entropy in a nearly model-independent manner. This picture suggests an elegant description of the relevant degrees of freedom, as Goldstone-boson-like excitations arising from symmetry breaking by a conformal anomaly induced by the horizon constraints.
The agenda of this meeting is empty