'Thermodynamics' of minimal surfaces and entropic origin of gravity
- Dubna International University, Universiteskaya street 19, 141 980, Dubna, Moscow Region (Russian Federation) and Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna (Russian Federation)
Deformations of minimal surfaces lying in constant-time slices in static space-times are studied. An exact and universal formula for a change of the area of a minimal surface under shifts of nearby pointlike particles is found. It allows one to introduce a local temperature on the surface and represent variations of its area in a thermodynamical form by assuming that the entropy in the Planck units equals the quarter of the area. These results provide a strong support to a recent hypothesis that gravity has an entropic origin, the minimal surfaces being a sort of holographic screens. The gravitational entropy also acquires a definite physical meaning related to quantum entanglement of fundamental degrees of freedom across the screen.
- OSTI ID:
- 21421155
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 82, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.82.064013; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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