Kerr and Kerr-AdS Black Shells and Black Hole Entropy: An Operational Approach

As an operational approach to the Bekenstein-Hawking formula S_{BH}=A/4l_{Pl}^{2} for the black hole entropy, considered in this monograph is the reversible contraction of a spinning thin shell to its event horizon and it is found that the shell's thermodynamic entropy approaches S_{BH}. In this sense the shell, called a "black shell", imitates and is externally indistinguishable from a black hole. This work is a generalization of the previous result for the spherical case. The exterior space-time of the shell is assumed to be given by the Kerr metric and matched to two different interior metrics, a vacuum one and a non-vacuum one. The vacuum interior embedding is found to break down for fast spinning shells. The mechanism is not clear and worth further exploring. The case of a Kerr-AdS exterior is also examined, without trying to find a detailed interior solution. One should expect the same behavior of the shell when the horizon limit is approached.

Now a Ph.D. student in physics at the University of Victoria, Canada. Received M.Sc. in 2007 from the University of Victoria under the supervision of Dr. Werner Israel. Received B.Sc. in 2003 from Nankai University, Tianjin, China.