Generalized Entropy in Higher Curvature Gravity And Entropy of Algebra of Observables

Recently, Chandrasekaran, Penington and Witten (CPW) have shown that the generalized entropy of the Schwarzschild black hole at the bifurcation surface equals the entropy of an extended von Neumann algebra of quantum observables in the black hole exterior, in semiclassical Einstein gravity. They also derive a version of the Generalized Second law. We generalize these results to a static black hole in an arbitrary diffeomorphism invariant theory of gravity. Thus, a version of the Generalized second law for an arbitrary diffeomorphism invariant theory of gravity follows.Comment: 33 pages, 3 figure

Study of Semiclassical Instability of the Schwarzschild AdS Black Hole in the Large DD Limit

We analyze the semiclassical stability of the Schwarzschild AdS black hole in the Euclidean partition function approach. We perform this computation in the large $D$ limit and focus on scalar perturbations. We obtain the equations for non-spherically symmetric scalar perturbations in a simple form. For a class of perturbations stability is demonstrated by the S-deformation method. For some other classes we rule out unstable modes of $\mathcal{O}(D^2)$. We also analyze the spherically symmetric perturbations and demonstrate the appearance of an unstable mode for small black holes in the large $D$ limit. We obtain an expression for the eigenvalue corresponding to the unstable mode to next to leading order in a $1/D$ expansion. This result agrees with a previously obtained numerical bound on this eigenvalue. For cosmological constant zero, our answer matches a previous result obtained for the corresponding eigenvalue for the $D$ dimensional Schwarzschild-Tangherlini black hole to next to leading order in a $1/D$ expansion.Comment: 41 pages, typos fixed, version to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit

A note on the action with the Schwarzian at the stretched horizon

In this paper, we discuss the quantization of an interesting model of Carlip which appeared recently. It shows a way to associate boundary degrees of freedom to the stretched horizon of a stationary non-extremal black hole, as has been done in JT gravity for near-extremal black holes. The path integral now contains an integral over the boundary degrees of freedom, which are time reparametrizations of the stretched horizon keeping its length fixed. These boundary degrees of freedom can be viewed as elements of $Diff(S^1)/S^1$, which is the coadjoint orbit of an ordinary coadjoint vector under the action of the Virasoro group. From the symplectic form on this manifold, we obtain the measure in the boundary path integral. Doing a one-loop computation about the classical solution, we find that the one-loop answer is not finite, signalling that either the classical solution is unstable or there is an indefiniteness problem with this action, similar to the conformal mode problem in quantum gravity. Upon analytically continuing the field, the boundary partition function we get is independent of the inverse temperature and does not contribute to the thermodynamics at least at one-loop. This is in contrast to the study of near-extremal black holes in JT gravity, where the entire contribution to thermodynamics is from boundary degrees of freedom.Comment: 40 page

Stability analysis of the Witten black hole (cigar soliton) under world-sheet RG flow

We analyze the stability of the Euclidean Witten black hole (the cigar soliton in mathematics literature) under first-order RG (Ricci) flow of the world-sheet sigma model. This analysis is from the target space point of view. We find that the Witten black hole has no unstable normalizable perturbative modes in a linearized mode analysis in which we consider circularly symmetric perturbations. Finally, we discuss a result from mathematics that implies the existence of a non-normalizable mode of the Witten black hole under which the geometry flows to the sausage solution studied by Fateev, Onofri and Zamolodchikov.Comment: 17 pages, version to appear in Physical Review D, and now has complete proof of stability for circularly symmetric perturbations, in response to referee comment