Comparison of area spectra in loop quantum gravity

We compare two area spectra proposed in loop quantum gravity in different approaches to compute the entropy of the Schwarzschild black hole. We describe the black hole in general microcanonical and canonical area ensembles for these spectra. We show that in the canonical ensemble, the results for all statistical quantities for any spectrum can be reproduced by a heuristic picture of Bekenstein up to second order. For one of these spectra - the equally-spaced spectrum - in light of a proposed connection of the black hole area spectrum to the quasinormal mode spectrum and following hep-th/0304135, we present explicit calculations to argue that this spectrum is completely consistent with this connection. This follows without requiring a change in the gauge group of the spin degrees of freedom in this formalism from SU(2) to SO(3). We also show that independent of the area spectrum, the degeneracy of the area observable is bounded by $C A\exp(A/4)$, where $A$ is measured in Planck units and $C$ is a constant of order unity.Comment: 8 pages, Revtex 4, version to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Time-reversal frameness and superselection

We show that appropriate superpositions of motional states are a reference frame resource that enables breaking of time -reversal superselection so that two parties lacking knowledge about the other's direction of time can still communicate. We identify the time-reversal reference frame resource states and determine the corresponding frameness monotone, which connects time-reversal frameness to entanglement. In contradistinction to other studies of reference frame quantum resources, this is the first analysis that involves an antiunitary rather than unitary representation.Comment: 10 p

Building blocks of a black hole

What is the nature of the energy spectrum of a black hole ? The algebraic approach to black hole quantization requires the horizon area eigenvalues to be equally spaced. As stressed long ago by by Mukhanov, such eigenvalues must be exponentially degenerate with respect to the area quantum number if one is to understand black hole entropy as reflecting degeneracy of the observable states. Here we construct the black hole states by means of a pair of "creation operators" subject to a particular simple algebra, a slight generalization of that for the harmonic oscillator. We then prove rigorously that the n-th area eigenvalue is exactly 2 raised to the n-fold degenerate. Thus black hole entropy qua logarithm of the number of states for fixed horizon area comes out proportional to that area.Comment: PhysRevTeX, 14 page

Thermal Fluctuations and Black Hole Entropy

In this paper, we consider the effect of thermal fluctuations on the entropy of both neutral and charged black holes. We emphasize the distinction between fixed and fluctuating charge systems; using a canonical ensemble to describe the former and a grand canonical ensemble to study the latter. Our novel approach is based on the philosophy that the black hole quantum spectrum is an essential component in any such calculation. For definiteness, we employ a uniformly spaced area spectrum, which has been advocated by Bekenstein and others in the literature. The generic results are applied to some specific models; in particular, various limiting cases of an (arbitrary-dimensional) AdS-Reissner-Nordstrom black hole. We find that the leading-order quantum correction to the entropy can consistently be expressed as the logarithm of the classical quantity. For a small AdS curvature parameter and zero net charge, it is shown that, independent of the dimension, the logarithmic prefactor is +1/2 when the charge is fixed but +1 when the charge is fluctuating.We also demonstrate that, in the grand canonical framework, the fluctuations in the charge are large, $\Delta Q\sim\Delta A\sim S_{BH}^{1/2}$, even when $=0$. A further implication of this framework is that an asymptotically flat, non-extremal black hole can never achieve a state of thermal equilibrium.Comment: 25 pages, Revtex; references added and corrected, and some minor change

Entropy bounds for charged and rotating systems

It was shown in a previous work that, for systems in which the entropy is an extensive function of the energy and volume, the Bekenstein and the holographic entropy bounds predict new results. In this paper, we go further and derive improved upper bounds to the entropy of {\it extensive} charged and rotating systems. Furthermore, it is shown that for charged and rotating systems (including non-extensive ones), the total energy that appear in both the Bekenstein entropy bound (BEB) and the causal entropy bound (CEB) can be replaced by the {\it internal} energy of the system. In addition, we propose possible corrections to the BEB and the CEB.Comment: 12 pages, revte

Area spectra of the rotating BTZ black hole from quasinormal modes

Following Bekenstein's suggestion that the horizon area of a black hole should be quantized, the discrete spectrum of the horizon area has been investigated in various ways. By considering the quasinormal mode of a black hole, we obtain the transition frequency of the black hole, analogous to the case of a hydrogen atom, in the semiclassical limit. According to Bohr's correspondence principle, this transition frequency at large quantum number is equal to classical oscillation frequency. For the corresponding classical system of periodic motion with this oscillation frequency, an action variable is identified and quantized via Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization, from which the quantized spectrum of the horizon area is obtained. This method can be applied for black holes with discrete quasinormal modes. As an example, we apply the method for the both non-rotating and rotating BTZ black holes and obtain that the spectrum of the horizon area is equally spaced and independent of the cosmological constant for both cases