On the existence of thermodynamically stable asymptotically flat black holes

Abstract

We use the quasilocal formalism of Brown and York, supplemented with counterterms, to investigate the thermodynamics of asymptotically flat black holes. We consider two families of exact regular black hole solutions, which are thermodynamically stable. The first one consists of four-dimensional static charged hairy black holes in extended supergravity. The second family consists of five-dimensional static charged black holes in Gauss-Bonnet (GB) gravity. Despite the fact that their characteristics are completely different, we found a striking similarity between their thermodynamic behaviour.