skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Toward quantum corrections in black hole thermodynamics

Miscellaneous ·
OSTI ID:7010313

Motivated by the incertitude of the stability of black holes in thermal equilibrium with their own radiation, yet lacking a closed renormalized effective action for gravity, the issue of stability is addressed from the point of view of quantum field theory in curved space. A conformally coupled scalar field is employed to model the one loop partition function which is then used to describe a finite black hole radiation system in the canonical ensemble. A boundary correct effective action is proposed based on an extension of the recently introduced Brown and Ottewill conformal approach. During the process of that extension, the required boundary correct C sub 2 coefficient, which appears as the fourth order gravitational counterterm in the renormalization of the conformal scalar field action, and which is intimately connected to the anomalous trace of the quantum stress tensor, is found in geometrical terms. The resulting effective theory is applied to radiation systems in flat space and in Schwarzschild spacetimes where thermal quantities are computed by the method of York. In flat space, explicit modifications were found to the Planckian thermal radiation quantities coming from the geometry of the cavity wall. In Schwarzschild it was found that the radiation does not effect the known zero-loop thermal stability, at least to the same level of approximation which is implicit in the quantum stress tensor of Page.

Research Organization:
North Carolina Univ., Chapel Hill, NC (USA)
OSTI ID:
7010313
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Ph.D. Thesis
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English