New type of phase transition in Reissner Nordstr\"om - AdS black hole and its thermodynamic geometry

Abstract

The phase transition of a RN-AdS black hole is studied in details using Ehrenfest's equations. There is no discontinuity in entropy which signals a lack of any first order phase transition. We then show that although Ehrenfest's first equation is satisfied, the second is not, so that a true second order phase transition is also ruled out. However this deviation from the second Ehrenfest's equation, for a certain range of the black hole charge, indicates the existence of a new glassy type transition. We finally study the thermodynamic behaviour using state space geometry and find that the scalar curvature diverges exactly at those points where the heat capacity diverges.Comment: Major revisions in Sec. 3. New results and interpretations. 2 new references. To appear in Phys. Lett.