Bekenstein bounds in de Sitter and flat space

Abstract

The D-bound on the entropy of matter systems in de Sitter space is shown to be closely related to the Bekenstein bound, which applies in a flat background. This holds in arbitrary dimensions if the Bekenstein bound is calibrated by a classical Geroch process. We discuss the relation of these bounds to the more general bound on the entropy to area ratio. We find that black holes do not saturate the Bekenstein bound in dimensions greater than four.