Classical thermodynamics of gravitational collapse

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates five-dimensional gravitational collapse, revealing that the late-stage free energy aligns with black-hole thermodynamics, suggesting a classical interpretation of black hole free energy.

Contribution

It demonstrates a classical perspective on black hole free energy through numerical simulation of gravitational collapse in higher dimensions.

Findings

Late-stage free energy matches black-hole thermodynamics

Collapse process characterized by nearly constant free energy

Supports a classical interpretation of black hole thermodynamics

Abstract

We study numerically gravitational collapse of a spherically symmetric instanton particle in five dimensions. We show that the late stages of the process are characterized by a nearly constant ``free energy'', the value of which matches (within numerical uncertainties) the value obtained from standard black-hole thermodynamics. This suggests a purely classical interpretation of the free energy of a black hole.