An entropy current for dynamical black holes in four-derivative theories of gravity

Abstract

We propose an entropy current for dynamical black holes in a theory with arbitrary four derivative corrections to Einstein’s gravity, linearized around a stationary black hole. The Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory is a special case of the class of theories that we consider. Within our approximation, our construction allows us to write down a completely local version of the second law of black hole thermodynamics, in the presence of the higher derivative corrections considered here. This ultra-local, stronger form of the second law is a generalization of a weaker form, applicable to the total entropy, integrated over a compact ‘time-slice’ of the horizon, a proof of which has been recently presented in [1]. We also provide a general algorithm to construct the entropy current for the four derivative theories, which may be straightforwardly generalized to arbitrary higher deriva- tive corrections to Einstein’s gravity. This algorithm highlights the possible ambiguities in defining the entropy current.