corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 54 » Issue 20
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. Lett. 54, 2171–2175 (1985)

Statistical Mechanical Origin of the Entropy of a Rotating, Charged Black Hole

Download: PDF (195 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

W. H. Zurek
Theoretical Astrophysics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, and California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125

Kip S. Thorne
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, and Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106

Received 11 March 1985; published in the issue dated 20 May 1985

It is shown that the entropy of a rotating, charged black hole is, in senses made precise in the paper, (i) the logarithm of the number of quantum mechanically distinct ways that the hole could have been made, and (ii) the logarithm of the number of configurations that the hole's "atmosphere," as measured by stationary observers, could assume in the presence of its background noise of acceleration radiation. In addition, a proof is given of the generalized second law of thermodynamics.

© 1985 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.54.2171
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.54.2171
PACS:
04.60.+n, 05.70.Ln, 05.90.+m, 97.60.Lf
 
< Previous Article | Next Article >