2007/04/30 by Hernando Quevedo · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s10714-007-0586-0
published as Gen.Rel.Grav.40:971-984,2008 · Revised version, to be published in Gen.Rel.Grav.(Mashhoon's Festschrift)
arxiv created 2007/07/02 · openalex publication_date 2008/01/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The thermodynamics of black holes is reformulated within the context of the recently developed formalism of geometrothermodynamics. This reformulation is shown to be invariant with respect to Legendre transformations, and to allow several equivalent representations. Legendre invariance allows us to explain a series of contradictory results known in the literature from the use of Weinhold's and Ruppeiner's thermodynamic metrics for black holes. For the Reissner-Nordström black hole the geometry of the space of equilibrium states is curved, showing a non trivial thermodynamic interaction, and the curvature contains information about critical points and phase transitions. On the contrary, for the Kerr black hole the geometry is flat and does not explain its phase transition structure.