Boundary Counterterms and the Thermodynamics of 2-D Black Holes

Abstract

We utilize a novel method to study the thermodynamics of two dimensional type 0A black holes with constant RR flux. Our approach is based on the Hamilton-Jacobi method of deriving boundary counterterms. We demonstrate this approach by recovering the standard results for a well understood example, Witten's black hole. Between this example and the 0A black hole we find universal expressions for the entropy and black hole mass, as well as the infra-red divergence of the partition function. As a non-trivial check of our results we verify the first law of thermodynamics for these systems. Our results for the mass disagree with the predictions of a proposed matrix model dual of the 0A black hole.