Black-hole thermodynamics Including black holes in the scheme of thermodynamics has disclosed a deep-seated connection between gravitation, heat and the quantum that may lead us to a synthesis of the corresponding branches of physics. Jacob D. Bekenstein ‘To the physicist casually interested in sravitation, a black hole isa passive object ‘that swallows anything near it nd cannot bbe made to disgorge it; it absorbs but, cannot emit. At the close of the last decade the oxperts shared this view. Recently, however, this simple pieture has changed entirely.” Perhaps no single de- velopment highlighted more the new views about black holes than the quantum argument presented by Stephen Hawking ‘of Cambridge University in 1974 that a black hole must radiate spontaneously ‘with a thermal spectrum. The impor- ‘tance of this phenomenon is not so much in possible practical applications, not even, in its astrophysical implications, but rather in that it has confirmed earlier suspicions that gravitation, thermod nnamies and the quantum world are deeply interconnected. This connection, which ‘ight be symbolized by the thermody. namie engine shown in figure 1, engenders hope that we may achieve a synthesis of ‘these three branches of physics in our time and bears witness to the profound nity of physies, a unity too often veiled in an age of increasing specialization, Black holes emerged as solutions of the ‘gravitational field equations of Albert which de. scribe regions of space-time invisible from their exterior. "The first such known so: lution, found in 1916 by the noted ph ‘nd astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, represents the space-time geometry (gravitational field) of a spherical static black hole; the nly adjustable parameter ‘of the solution is the object’s mass M. In ‘2 famous paper, published on the day ‘marking the outbreak of World War Ih Robert Oppenheimer and Harlan Snyder demonstrated that this Schwarzschild solution describes the final state of a ‘lac0b D. Bokonstein is Professor of Physic the Ben-Gurion Unversity of the Negev, Boor Sheva, Israel, 24 puYSiCs TODAY / JANUARY 1880 spherically collapsing massive star (see figure 2). "This paper was the first tore- ard the black hole as @ central phenom. enon in astrophysics. But this isnot the aspect of interest here. Rather, we are interested in the black hole as a state of the gravitational field that resembles an ordinary object in many respects, espe- cially in its interactions with the rest of the universe By the 1960's the most general black hole solution known was one deseribing a rotating electrically charged hole in sta- tionary state. It is parameterized by the object's mass M, charge @ and angular momentum L (see table 1), and is gener- ally known as the charged Kerr black hole! after Roy Kerr who discovered the special case with @ = 0 in 1962. The Schwaraschild hole has L = @ = 0. Black holes have no halt In principle one would expect equilid- rium black holes with more parameters describing shape and various other properties. Yet in the late 1960's John A. ‘Wheeler, then at Princeton University, suggested that in fact the charged Kerr black holes are the most general equilib rium black holes states as far as exterior properties are congerned. (See also the ticle by Remo Ruffini and Wheeler, Introducing the black hole,” PHYSICS ‘TODAY, January 1971, page 80.) He was led to this conjecture, which he whim- sically paraphrased as “black holes have no hair,” by uniqueness theorems of ‘Wemer Israel and Brandon Carter re- garding the Schwaraschild and Kerr holes. Since then an impressive amount of evi- dence has piled up in favor of the conjec- ‘ture; in particular, it has become clear that there is no way to introduce quan- tities like baryon and lepton numbers, strangeness, ete, as black-hole parame” ters. True, over the years black-hole s0- lutions having magnetic monopole, scalar field charge, quark color, and other den- ions of the theorist’s mind as parameters have been exhibited. But no extension of the charged Kerr solution has ever ‘emerged as a description of equilibrium black holes, and no "quantum number” ‘other than MQ, and L. has been found to characterize the state of blackhholes. (For example, its baryon and lepton numbers would be unobservable outside the black hole, the magnetic pole strength is, as far as we know, nota freely oceurring quan. tity and present theory regards all ob- servable hadrons—from which the black hole would form—as “colorless.”) ‘This conclusion appears to be theory independent. Black-hole solutions of several of general relativity’s competitor gravitational theories (scalar-tensor theories and supergravity) have been found. ‘They all belong to the charged Kerr family. ‘The principle “black holes have no hair” evidently transcends the bounds of general relativity, and may be regarded as a general law of black-hole physics. Inreversibiity of black holes Asa graduate student of Wheeler's at Princeton I found “black holes have no hair” distressing for a reason he brought home tome ina 1971 conversation. ‘The prineiple, he argued, allows a. wicked ‘ereature-—call it Wheeler's demon—to commit the perfeet crime against the second law of thermodynamics. It only has to drop a package containing some entropy into a stationary black hole, thus ‘decreasing the entropy in the part of the ‘universe visible from the exterior. ‘The associated changes in M, Q, and L do not ‘uniquely reveal how much entropy i then inside the hole, 60 an exterior observer with no inside information about the package can never be sure that the total entropy in the universe has not decreased. For him the second law is transcended — seststonnoosrae 2750 i Amr on et‘made irrelevant. It loses its predictive power, so that black holes seem to be outside the province of thermodynarics. ‘This circumstance seemed disastrous, not oly beeause it would deprive usof the use ‘of model-free thermodynamic reasoning, in investigating the bizarre black holes, Dut also because it could be seen as throwing doubt on their very existence, even in principle. ‘While mulling over this dilemma I w: struck by the possible relevance ofa di ‘covery that Demetrios Christodoulou, ‘another of Wheeler's students, had made not long before. While investigating the efficioney of certain processes proposed bby Roger Penrose for extracting rotational ‘energy from a Kerr black hole and con- ‘verting ito mechanical energy of parti- ‘les, Christodotilou noticed that the most ‘efficient processes are those associated with reversible changes of the black hole.! Less efficient processes are all connected with the irreversible increase of a certain “reducible mass” Mj-—the inextractable ppart of the mass of the hole. Since in ‘thermodynamics reversible processes are ‘the most efficient ones for converting ‘energy from one form into another, there ‘was a clear thermedynamic ring to allthis. So black holes might be in harmony with thermodynamics after all. If there were any doubts as to the gen cerality of the irreversibility, they were dispelled by a theorem proved by Hawk ing: The surface area A of the boundary ‘or horizon of any black hole cannot de- ‘etease and will increase in a dynamical process. For a Kerr hole A is propor- tional to M2, so the area theorem implies Christodoutou’s result that all but very idealized processes increase Mi. But the theorem shows irreversibility to be a property of all black hole processes, not jus those of near-equilibrium holes, “And if points to a formal analogy between black hole area and entropy’ of a closed ssystem—both like to increase. Black-hole entropy ‘Itoccurred to me that some monotonic increasing function of A might play the rleof entropy of black holes—entropy on the same footing as ordinary thermal en- tropy. In my 1972 dissertation I dis- ceussed various questions connected with such an identification, and showed how to Use it to defeat the schemes of Wheeler's ‘demon and make black hole physies con- sistent with thermodynamics, "The first question was, what function of A is to be identified with the entropy ‘Syn of the black hole. There are several ‘other conditions an entropy funetion ‘must meet besides the inability to de- ‘crease spontaneously: It must also be additive for independent systems, for ‘example. From the outset the most likely prospects were proportionalities to A or (VA. The second appeared especially attractive, because it makes the entropy proportional to the mass for black holes (eS {A gravitational-thermodynamie engine for conwertng heat to work, conceivod by Robert Goroch, Utne a black hole a heat sik. The box led with thrmalracation and towered inthe hote's field os hrizen. The gravitational field does work on tho box in his process. Tho radiation 'sthen allowed to escape int the hole, and the bos is hauled backup at expense of ass work than ‘nas obtained io th fist stage can ton be retiied with thermal radiation from the reservoir. ‘Because the box cannot be alowod Io touch the horizon the eficiency of conversion is ess than ‘Vane nt unity as orginally thought. (Drawing by Lous Fulgon) Floure 1 PHYSICS TODAY / JANUARY 1980 25Singularity, > toedbnes ‘Spherical collapse to a black hole. We show the spacetime histories of surface (ilusrated as cne-cimensiona), ofthe resting singularity and {a engulf the body. ‘The tting ofthe light cone by gravitation explain wt the horizon is invisible rom outside. The spaceike hyporsuraces lavelad ‘the concept of space ata given timo, with the same ratios of L/M? and Q/M; for ordinary matter, also, the entropy is proportionel to mass, other things being equal, But this choice leads to trouble ‘When two black holes coalesce, Having’ ‘area theorem says the surface area must beat leat as large asthe sum of the areas athe two holes. However, the sum ofthe Square roots ofthe original areas can ex- ceed the square root of the final area, so taking Si, proportional to A would endow it with unacceptable behavior.” No problem arises if Sigis proportional to A. ‘Thus I chose? Shy, to be proportional to the area of the horizon, Determination of the proportionality constant was more problematic. ‘There isan obvious constant with dimensions af entropy—Boltzmann'sconstantk. What ‘was missing was the scale of length whose Square should be used to reduce A to a dimensionless quantity. Wheeler sug- gested the fundamental length Lpw = (AG /e)"= 1.61 x 10-® em which sas introduced into physics by Max Planck after his discovery of the law for the blackbody spectrum. Planck noted that this scale involves fundamen- tal constants independent of particle properties, in contrast to other lengths such asthe clasical radius of the electron, Later, Wheeler stressed the role Lyyy most’ play in the ultimate theory of 26 prysics ToOAY / saNUARY 1980 the region interior 0 supplant, relative, Figure 2 ‘quantum gravitation, He bas argued that Lyw must represent the smallest scale at which spacetime ean be regarded as a smooth manifold; at smaller seales it must hhave a foam-like consistency, Ly is often called the Planck-Wheeler length, ‘Wheeler's suggestion led? toa formula for black hole entropy independent of the Droperties of matter Sun = mhA/L py? Here 9 isa pure number, presumably of ‘order unity, to be determined separately ‘This formula links a purely thermody- namic quantity—entropy-—to a purely gravitational one—horizon area, and the connection becomes meaningless if one oes to the classical limit A> 0. ‘Thus it reflects the deep connection of gravita- tion, thermodynamics and the quantum world Talluded to, Information and entropy Seay I te om Barat be wondering about the physieal mea of Spy. Tecannot be the thermal entropy of the matter inside the hole, For con. sider a sun-like star with mass 2x 10%, Its thermal entropy is 10°%% in order of magnitude. Were the star to collapse ‘completely, it would make a stationary black hole with surface area of order 100 Jem (see table 1). Our formula associates with itan entropy of order 10°%. Yet no known dissipative process can generate enough entropy during the collapse to ‘multiply the matter's entropy by a factor 10%. Thus Spy is something else than thermal entropy. In statistical physics, as well as other fields, entropy has come to stand for missing information. With that interpretation, the thermal entropy a cube of sugar simply measures our ignorance as to the precise microscopic ite of the molecules in the cube, while its macroscopic state is fully described by chemical composition, temperature, vol- lume and perhaps a few other variables. ‘The ignorance of the exterior observer ‘about the matter inside a black hole is deeper. “Black holes have:no hair” allows us only knowledge of M, @ and L for a stationary hole; neither the microstate, nor composition (baryons, photons...) nor temperature, nor structure (shape, size...), nor anything else is—even in principle—measurable by a distant ob- server. The funetion Si, is the obvious candidate for quantifying this deeper ig: ‘norance, so it is not surprising that it can bbe vastly larger than any reasonable es- timate of the thermal entropy. ‘The following reasoning shows this in terpretation of Sj, is not far fetched. When an object disappears down a black hole, we lose information about its mi- crostate, composition, motion, and so on. (The information about the motion is clearly tied with properties of the hol whose field the object moves. But clear ee ee ee ee Table 1 The charged Kerr black hole Parameter mass a charge 0 ‘egulor moment & Charactrsictongn m= ale? a= (a%e!« as ume ‘exghy size of hole antay equvlent to Tem 1.36% 108% 849 x 10am 3X 10lem*is pact angular Const mea gtat Formula forreizn rea Ae Asllins ie ge aA + al Potent sustace tension? electric potential angie velocity Definition (MDA (ome. meatan Ferrata lit = gf ~ a8)!e4/204 Ol4r/A mala"? (WANA A 1/26 = 667 X 10! ecgyem