Search Talks

I will describe a new proposal for defining the holographic
entanglement entropy at subleading orders in N (on the boundary) or
hbar (in the bulk). This involves a new concept of "quantum extremal
surfaces" defined as the surface which extremizes the sum of the area
and the bulk entanglement entropy. This conjecture reduces to
previous conjectures in suitable limits, and satisfies some nontrivial
consistency checks. Based on arXiv:1408.3203

The mass of a black hole has traditionally been identified with its energy. We describe a new perspective on black hole thermodynamics, one that identifies the mass of a black hole with chemical enthalpy, and the cosmological constant as thermodynamic pressure. This leads to an understanding of black holes from the viewpoint of chemistry, in terms of concepts such as Van derWaals fluids, reentrant phase transitions, and triple points. Both charged and rotating
black holes exhibit novel chemical-type phase behaviour, hitherto unseen.