Black Holes in Higher-Derivative Gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates static black-hole solutions in higher-derivative gravity theories, demonstrating the existence of new solutions beyond Schwarzschild and analyzing their thermodynamic properties.

Contribution

It provides a numerical demonstration of additional black-hole solutions in Einstein gravity with quadratic curvature terms, expanding understanding of such theories.

Findings

Existence of new black-hole solutions beyond Schwarzschild

These solutions obey the first law of thermodynamics

Ricci scalar curvature vanishes for these solutions

Abstract

Extensions of Einstein gravity with higher-order derivative terms arise in string theory and other effective theories, as well as being of interest in their own right. In this paper we study static black-hole solutions in the example of Einstein gravity with additional quadratic curvature terms. A Lichnerowicz-type theorem simplifies the analysis by establishing that they must have vanishing Ricci scalar curvature. By numerical methods we then demonstrate the existence of further black-hole solutions over and above the Schwarzschild solution. We discuss some of their thermodynamic properties, and show that they obey the first law of thermodynamics.