Power-law corrections to black-hole entropy via entanglement

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quantum entanglement contributes to black-hole entropy, revealing that deviations from the area law occur when the field is in excited states, leading to power-law corrections.

Contribution

It demonstrates that entanglement entropy deviates from the area law with fractional power corrections in excited states, providing a new perspective on black-hole entropy.

Findings

Area law holds for ground state fields

Power-law corrections appear in superpositions

Comparison with other approaches discussed

Abstract

We consider the entanglement between quantum field degrees of freedom inside and outside the horizon as a plausible source of black-hole entropy. We examine possible deviations of black hole entropy from area proportionality. We show that while the area law holds when the field is in its ground state, a correction term proportional to a fractional power of area results when the field is in a superposition of ground and excited states. We compare our results with the other approaches in the literature.