1998/05/30 by Richard J. Epp, Robert B. Mann, R. B. Mann · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1142/s0217732398001960
published as Mod.Phys.Lett. A13 (1998) 1875-1880 · 6 pages, 0 figures, LaTeX; submitted to Mod. Phys. Lett. A.; this essay received "honorable mention" from the Gravity Research Foundation, 1998
arxiv created 1998/05/30 · openalex publication_date 1998/07/30 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
If one encodes the gravitational degrees of freedom in an orthonormal frame field, there is a very natural first-order action one can write down (which in four dimensions is known as the Goldberg action). In this letter we will show that this action contains a boundary action for certain microscopic degrees of freedom living at the horizon of a black hole, and argue that these degrees of freedom hold great promise for explaining the microstates responsible for black hole entropy, in any number of space–time dimensions. This approach faces many interesting challenges, both technical and conceptual.