Published May 2008 | Version v1
Journal article

The Weyl curvature conjecture and black hole entropy

  • 1. Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, Box 1029 Blindern, N-0315 Oslo (Norway)
  • 2. Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Box 1048 Blindern, 0316 Oslo (Norway)
  • 3. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3J5 (Canada)

Description

The universe today, containing stars, galaxies and black holes, seems to have evolved from a very homogeneous initial state. From this it appears as if the entropy of the universe is decreasing, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. It has been suggested by Roger Penrose that this inconsistency can be solved if one assigns an entropy to the spacetime geometry. He also pointed out that the Weyl tensor has the properties one would expect to find in a description of a gravitational entropy. In this paper, we make an attempt to use this so-called Weyl curvature conjecture to describe the Hawking-Bekenstein entropy of black holes and the entropy of horizons due to a cosmological constant. Our analysis indicates that in the static spherically symmetric case this is not possible

Availability note (English)

Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0031-8949/77/05/055901

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physica Scripta (Online)
Journal Volume
77
Journal Issue
5
Journal Page Range
[7 p.]
ISSN
1402-4896

INIS

Country of Publication
United Kingdom
Country of Input or Organization
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
INIS RN
40019074
Subject category
S71: CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS;
Descriptors DEI
BLACK HOLES; COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT; COSMOLOGICAL MODELS; ENTROPY; GALAXIES; GEOMETRY; SPACE-TIME; STARS; SYMMETRY; TENSORS; THERMODYNAMICS; UNIVERSE; WEYL UNIFIED THEORY
Descriptors DEC
FIELD THEORIES; MATHEMATICAL MODELS; MATHEMATICS; PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES; UNIFIED-FIELD THEORIES