An entropy current and the second law in higher derivative theories of gravity

TL;DR

This paper proves the second law of thermodynamics for black holes in higher derivative gravity theories by constructing an entropy current with non-negative divergence, ensuring entropy increases during dynamical processes.

Contribution

It introduces a general proof of the second law in higher derivative gravity theories using an entropy current approach, applicable to linearized fluctuations around stationary black holes.

Findings

Constructed an entropy current with non-negative divergence.

Matched the entropy current with previous specific theories.

Provided an alternative proof of the physical process first law.

Abstract

We construct a proof of the second law of thermodynamics in an arbitrary diffeomorphism invariant theory of gravity working within the approximation of linearized dynamical fluctuations around stationary black holes. We achieve this by establishing the existence of an entropy current defined on the horizon of the dynamically perturbed black hole in such theories. By construction, this entropy current has non-negative divergence, suggestive of a mechanism for the dynamical black hole to approach a final equilibrium configuration via entropy production as well as the spatial flow of it on the null horizon. This enables us to argue for the second law in its strongest possible form, which has a manifest locality at each space-time point. We explicitly check that the form of the entropy current that we construct in this paper exactly matches with previously reported expressions computed considering specific four derivative theories of higher curvature gravity. Using the same set up we also provide an alternative proof of the physical process version of the first law applicable to arbitrary higher derivative theories of gravity.