Thermodynamics of Spacetime and Unimodular Relativity

TL;DR

This paper argues that unimodular relativity, rather than general relativity, provides a more natural thermodynamic framework for deriving Einstein's equations from horizon entropy, emphasizing causal structure and spacetime discreteness.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the thermodynamic derivation of Einstein's equations aligns with unimodular relativity and explores implications for the cosmological constant and spacetime statistics.

Findings

Unimodular relativity naturally emerges as the framework for thermodynamic derivations.

The traceless stress tensor is uniquely determined by the field equations.

Energy-momentum conservation holds without entropy production in the generalized thermodynamic approach.

Abstract

The black hole entropy formula applied to local Rindler horizon at each spacetime point has been used in the literature to derive the Einstein field equation as an equation of state of a thermodynamical system of spacetime. In the present paper we argue that due to the key role of causal structure and discrete spacetime in this approach the natural framework is unimodular relativity rather than general relativity. It is shown that the equation of state is trace free unimodular relativity field equation that uniquely determines only the traceless stress tensor. Recent generalization to nonequilibrium thermodynamics is shown to be equivalent to the conformally related spacetime metrics, and energy-momentum conservation is satisfied without invoking entropy production. We suggest that the cosmological constant should possess thermodynamical fluctuations, and at a deeper level the metric may have statistical origin.