From entropy to gravitational entropy

TL;DR

This paper reviews the development of the concept of gravitational entropy, discussing various proposals and their limitations, and emphasizing the need for a comprehensive, self-consistent definition that unifies black hole and cosmological contexts.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the historical and recent proposals for gravitational entropy, highlighting the challenges and gaps in formulating a complete, unified theory.

Findings

Various geometric proposals for gravitational entropy have been developed.

Existing definitions are limited to specific spacetimes or conditions.

A fully consistent and general notion of gravitational entropy remains elusive.

Abstract

The concept of entropy forms the backbone of the principles of thermodynamics. R.C. Tolman initiated the correlation between gravity and thermodynamics. The development of black hole thermodynamics and the generalized second law of thermodynamics led to Penrose's conjecture that the Weyl tensor should serve as a measure of the entropy of the free gravitational field. This entropy, known as gravitational entropy, reflects the degrees of freedom of the free gravitational field. The proposition of gravitational entropy provides a justification for the low entropy of the initial Universe. It was necessary to associate an entropy function with the free gravitational field even at the time of the big bang, so that a gravity-dominated evolution of the Universe may preserve the second law of thermodynamics. It also places the concept of black hole entropy in a proper context, which appears as a special case of gravitational entropy. However, a self-consistent notion of gravitational entropy has eluded us till today. Various proposals have been put forward, initially based on Penrose's Weyl Curvature Hypothesis, and subsequently modified to fit the needs of specific geometries and matter distributions. Such proposals were basically geometric in nature. A decade back a new definition of gravitational entropy was proposed from the considerations of the relativistic Gibbs equation and based on the square root of the Bel-Robinson tensor. However, even this proposal is valid only for a restricted class of spacetimes. A complete description of gravitational entropy encompassing black hole physics and cosmological dynamics is yet to emerge. In this article, we will try to gather an overview of the concept of gravitational entropy beginning with the initial attempts to correlate gravity with thermodynamics and follow it up with the development of the various proposals of gravitational entropy.