Thermodynamics of high dimensional Schwarzschild de Sitter spacetimes: variable cosmological constant

Abstract

We study the thermodynamic properties of high dimensional Schwarzschild de Sitter spacetimes with the consideration of quantum effects. It is shown that by considering the cosmological constant as a variable state parameter and adding an extra term which denotes the vacuum energy, both the differential and integral mass formulas of the first law of Schwarzschild de Sitter spacetimes can be directly derived from the general Schwarzschild de Sitter metrics in a simple and natural way. Furthermore, after taking quantum effects into account, we can see that the cosmological constant must decrease and the spontaneous decay of the vacuum energy never makes the entropy of Schwarzschild de Sitter spacetimes decrease. In addition, though the laws of thermodynamics are very powerful, at least the third law can not be applied to the Schwarzschild de Sitter spacetimes. It should be emphasized that these conclusions come into existence in any dimension.