Black Hole Entropy from Conformal Field Theory in Any Dimension

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  • 4 December 1998
Abstract
When restricted to the horizon of a black hole, the ``gauge'' algebra of surface deformations in general relativity contains a physically important Virasoro subalgebra with a calculable central charge. The fields in any quantum theory of gravity must transform under this algebra; that is, they must admit a conformal field theory description. With the aid of Cardy's formula for the asymptotic density of states in a conformal field theory, I use this description to derive the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. This method is universal---it holds for any black hole, in any dimension, and requires no details of quantum gravity---but it is also explicitly statistical mechanical, based on the counting of microscopic states.

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