Black hole mechanics in effective field theory

The laws of black hole mechanics are an important part of the connection between black holes and thermodynamics that plays a central role in quantum gravity research. The usual proofs of these laws hold for general relativity coupled to matter. However it is known that GR is just an effective field theory, subject to higher derivative corrections.

Therefore it is important to extend the laws of black hole mechanics to incorporate such corrections. This has been achieved for the first law.

This project aims to extend this success to the second law of black hole mechanics, i.e., to find a definition of dynamical black hole entropy satisfying a second law in theories with higher derivative corrections.