Thermodynamics of Black Holes

I Thermodynamics
The field of thermodynamics began in the 19th Century as a means to enhance steam engine performance. It
was soon determined that this study could be applied to a wider variety of systems. Today, thermodynamics
is an important branch of physics relevant for not only engines but for material studies, astrophysics,
cosmology, and as we will discuss here, black holes.
The basic idea behind thermodynamics is to try to understand the properties of large collections of
molecules (macroscopic systems) without the knowledge of the complete state of the system. In order to
completely specify a state within physics the position and velocities of each component must be known (in
addition to other quantities like electric charge etc.). In practice this is not feasible. Suitable averages over
these microscopic parameters are performed and relevant macroscopic quantities are used to describe the
thermodynamic state of a system.
As an example, consider a volume of gas (say 1 liter at room temperature) contained within a container of
volume V. As stated above, a complete description of this system would include the position and velocity
of each molecule at one particular time. This alone could involve on the order of 1024 parameters to keep
track of (not including the boundary conditions, electric dipoles, etc.). It is not possible with current
technology to perform a measurement of the complete state of this gas. In classical thermodynamics it is
assumed that the molecules within the gas are governed by classical mechanics (Newtons 3 laws). One can
then perform an average over the system to come up with thermodynamic quantities describing this gas.
Some quantities are easy to determine - the mass of the gas (M) and the volume of the gas (V). The mass of
the gas is often re-expressed in terms of the number of molecules in the gas (N). Knowing the mass of each
molecule this can be found. The result is usually expressed in terms of the unit moles (n), one mole of a
substance is equal to 1 Avogrados number of them (NA = 6.02 x 1023). Other macroscopic quantities
found by averaging include the pressure (P), the energy (U) of the gas which is related to the temperature of
the gas (T). Temperature is an expression of the statistical average of the kinetic energies of the
microscopic components.
Thus, thermodynamics is a statistical theory, we know the underlying theory in describing the microscopic
parameters, we know that they are there, we just do not know in exactly what state they are in. Using the
fact that classical mechanics governs the interactions of the microscopic objects we can obtain useful
description of the system as a whole in terms of the macroscopic parameters.
A quick example, in trying to predict weather, meteorologists give probabilities that some event will
happen; there is a 20% chance of rain tomorrow. In order to arrive at this prediction the meteorologist
examines the measured macroscopic quantities (high and low fronts, wind speeds, jet streams, etc). If it
were possible (though way, way beyond our current technology) to determine the exact location and
velocity of every atom in the atmosphere, the amount of solar radiation penetrating the atmosphere, the
ground temperature at every spot on Earth, the flapping of every butterfly, etc. at one instant in time, a
prediction of the future evolution of the weather would be nearly 100%. (This leads us down the road of
chaos theory, basically EVERY minute detail would need to be known precisely in order to predict with
near 100% certainty (the slightest error would soon magnify and swamp out the precision). But, in
principle, it would be possible to do. [This differs from quantum mechanics, which has inherent
uncertainties for the most microscopic objects. There are no underlying dynamics to analyze.]

Thermodynamics as Information Theory

An aspect of thermodynamics that was not understood until the mid-20th Century was that thermodynamics
is intimately connected with information. Consider the information content of our gas sample. The
complete specification of the state of the gas (state of each molecule within the gas) yields the greatest
amount of information about the gas. In performing these averages over the microscopic states a great
amount of information has been lost (we do not know the positions or velocities of the molecules).
It turns out for most uses that we are interested in the averaged quantities is enough to describe the system
and predict its future evolution.

The idea of our knowledge of information of a system is closely related to a quantity called entropy.
Entropy is often cloaked in mysterious double talk from those not familiar with the concept. There are three
basic ways to define entropy. At the most basic level, entropy is a measure of the number of states available
to a system. The most common way to describe entropy is as a measure of disorder (the greater the entropy,
the greater the disorder in a system). Another way that entropy is thought of is as the amount of missing
information in a macroscopic system.
For example, back to our gas, the totally specified state had the maximal information (the amount of
information we know about it). This state is equivalent to a very low (zero) entropy state. The same state
where we consider only the macroscopic quantities (P, V, T, n), has a much larger amount of unknown
information. The reason being that there are a very large number of distinct microscopic states (different
positions and velocities of molecules) which give the exam same macroscopic results (same P,V,T,n). We
do not know in which of these myriad microscopic states the system is in, just that it has the values P,V,T,
and n.
The study of Thermodynamics begins with the four laws of thermodynamics (laws 0,1,2, and 3).
Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
This law states that for any system in thermal equilibrium, all points in the system are at the same
temperature. (No heat flow is occurring).
First Law of Thermodynamics
If two systems are placed in contact there will be heat flow between them until thermal
equilibrium is reached (they are at the same temperature). It also expresses how much work can be done by
or on a system given an amount of heat flow.
-The change in internal energy of a closed system is equal to the net heat added to the system minus the net
work done by the system.
Second Law of Thermodynamics
There are various ways to state the 2nd law,
-The total entropy of any system plus that of its environment increases as a result of any natural process.
-Natural processes tend to move toward a state of greater disorder.
Third Law of Thermodynamics
This law states that it is not possible to lower the temperature of a system to absolute zero (0
Kelvin or 273.15 degrees Celsius) by a finite number of transformations, which cool the system.
Basically, you cant reach absolute zero.
We are mostly interested in the second law of thermodynamics which states that the entropy of the universe
either remains constant (for a process called reversible) or increases during any physical process. Common
examples of increasing disorder (and not a decrease of disorder) are;
- A glass falling and breaking into many shards of glass
(We never see shards of glass assemble themselves into a glass).
- Stars may explode (or spew of gas) as they age. This is a more disordered system
there are many more states for the gas to be in.
You might argue that freezing water into an ice cube is an example of a system going from a more
disordered state to a more ordered state (there are many more states available to water than in an ordered
array of atoms which are not moving much). However, you must always consider the entire universe. In
creating an ice cube you expel quite a bit of heat. This heat (which can be in many equivalent states) has
high entropy. When you find the net change you find that the entropy increase of the universe by the
release of the heat is greater than the decrease of the H20 molecules.
Viewing entropy as the lack of information we have about the system we see that the second law
states that our ignorance of the universe always increases. It is this fact that we want to examine in the
context of black holes.

II Black Holes in terms of thermodynamics

An immediate problem
We just introduced the second law of thermodynamics and stated it in a form relating to the lack of
information about a system. The lack of information never decreases in a physical process. Recall that we
stated that a black hole is one of the simplest classical objects in the universe. It only takes 3 independent
parameters to describe the state completely, (M,Q,L). Now imagine the amount of information (or the
number of available states) in a massive star prior to collapsing into a black hole. This corresponds to a
large amount of entropy (more specifically, entropy is related to the logarithm of the number of states
available). When this star collapses into a black hole it goes from a state with a lot of entropy (much
unknown information or equivalently large number of equivalent states yielding the same macroscopic
state) to a state completely specified by M, Q, and L. We seem to have a case here where the entropy of the
universe has decreased. In fact, since everything is known about the black hole, the entropy is zero. A black
hole is a much more ordered object than a star. We have a gross violation of the second law of
thermodynamics, the entropy is going from a very large value (for the star) to a completely defined state
(entropy zero).
On a further note, consider the temperature of a classical black hole. It is black, nothing escapes,
meaning it does not radiate thus it has zero temperature. This violates the third law of thermodynamics
listed above.
How to resolve this problem?
In the 1970s Bekenstein proposed modifying the second law by attributing some entropy to the
black hole. This can be seen as merely an accounting trick to keep the entropy of the universe, now
expressed as,

S ' S + S BH
a never decreasing function. Then we replace the ordinary second law of thermodynamics with the
generalized second law (GSL): The total entropy of the universe, S, never decreases in any physical
process. The actual argument to show that this generalized law is valid is rather involved and would take us
quite a bit of time.
To make progress we will introduce two parameters that we can associate with a black hole (these
are functions of M, Q, and L, the independent parameters describing a classical black hole). The first is
simply the area of the event horizon. For simplicity we consider a Schwarzschild (Q=L=0) black hole. The
area is simply ABH = 4 RS and with the definition of the Schwarzschild radius we have,
2

ABH = 4

4G 2 M 2
G2M 2
16
=

c4
c4

Rs =

2GM
.
c2

The other quantity is of interest is the surface gravity at the horizon (the acceleration due to gravity). We
will label this quantity as (by convention). Recall that on the surface of the Earth g = GMe/Re2 =9.8 m/s2,
thus we have,

GM
GMc 4
c4
= 2 = 2 2=
.
RS
4G M
4GM
Thus as a black hole acquires more mass, its area grows and its surface gravity decreases.
Note that if we take two black holes of mass M1 and M2 and allow them to coalesce the area of the
resulting black hole is greater than the sum of the two original areas,
A1 + A2 ~ M1 + M2 < A1+2 ~ (M1 +M2)2.
This idea that the area of a black hole never decreased sounds familiar if we replace area by entropy. In
fact, this leads us to a parallel between the classical laws of thermodynamics and a new set relating to black
holes.
Note however that if we now attribute some entropy to the black hole then this object should exist
at some non-zero temperature. So we have not completely resolved the problem yet. Notice however, that if
there were some temperature associated with the horizon, then the problem with the 3rd law would go away.
But how could an object that only absorbs energy be at a non-zero temperature (radiate thermal energy

away)? We will see how this can be accounted for by examining Hawking radiation this requires quantum
mechanics to understand. (We will return to this in a later lecture).
The Laws of Black Hole Mechanics
For the moment we will assume that our classical black hole has some finite temperature T (of
course it cant classically, this requires quantum mechanics to exist) and some entropy S. We have stated
that we have identified the entropy of the black hole with its horizon area. Thus the second law becomes
that the area of a black holes horizon always grows in a physical process.
We would like to make one more connection between thermodynamic quantities and properties of
black holes. The first law states that the temperature is constant throughout a body in thermal equilibrium.
Analyzing our black hole we note that the surface gravity, , is the same over the spherically symmetric
Schwarzschild black hole horizon. Thus it is tempting to relate the temperature of the black hole to the
surface gravity at the horizon. Doing so allows us to state the 4 laws of thermodynamics in terms of the
mass, surface area, and surface gravity of the black hole. It is believed that these new laws hold for black
holes.
Laws of Black Hole Thermodynamics
Law

Thermodynamics

Schwarzschild black hole

Zeroth

T is constant throughout
body in thermal equilibrium.

surface gravity, k, is constant on

the horizon of a black hole

First

dE = dQ W or
dE = TdS pdV

using E = mc2,
d(mc2) ~ dA

Second

dS >= 0

dA >= 0

Third

T = 0 can not be reached

= 0 can not be reached.

(+dJ-dq for spinning charged BH).

There are still some troubles with this scenario (we have yet to explain how a black hole can be
hot) but to go further requires some knowledge of quantum mechanics.