Brown and York's gravitational microcanonical density of states is extended to general spacetime dimension and shown to be dependent upon features of the 4 dimensional gravitational action for its interpretation. Black hole entropy is calculated from the density of states path integral in general spacetime dimension, and the interpretation is shown to be likewise dependent upon the dimension of spacetime. The entropy of de Sitter and Rindler horizons are calculated using the black hole density of states and the notion of local horizon entropy density is shown to be supported. The applicability of the microcanonical ensemble to black hole mechanics is discussed at a fundamental level focussing on the absence of angular velocity as an external parameter in the gravitational Hamiltonian. The rotational ensemble and a new ensemble - the angular momentum ensemble - are introduced following Jaynes' information theory approach to statistical mechanics and proposed as more compelling candidates to calculate black hole entropy as a function of state.
A program to calculate the density of states path integral non-perturbatively using causal dynamical triangulations is initiated. Regge calculus expressions for extrinsic curvature are extended to the case of Lorentzian hypersurfaces and used to derive Regge calculus expressions for quasilocal energy-momentum. The Regge version of the black hole density of states action is derived and specialised to the 3d and 4d spacetime constructions of causal dynamical triangulations.
Finally, the recent suggestion that entropy is observer dependent is shown to be incompatible with the Tolman law for the equilibrium temperature in a gravitational field.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/26247 |
| Date | 17 February 2011 |
| Creators | Thomson, Mitchell |
| Contributors | Dyer, Charles C. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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