A Quasi-local Entropy for Black Hole Space-times

Abstract

We show that for static & spherically symmetric black hole geometries, the angular components of the Brown-York tensor on a finite radius boundary can be interpreted as the product of the Tolman-Ehrenfest temperature and a quasi-local entropy. This entropy vanishes at spatial infinity and monotonically increases as radius decreases, taking its maximum value on the horizon where it is equal to the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. Thus, the behaviour of this entropy provides explicit verification of the covariant entropy conjecture.