BLACK HOLE ENTROPY IN HIGHER CURVATURE GRAVITY

We discuss some recent results on black hole thermodynamics within the context of effective gravitational actions including higher-curvature interactions. Wald’s derivation of the First Law demonstrates that black hole entropy can always be expressed as a local geometric density integrated over a space-like cross-section of the horizon. In certain cases, it can also be shown that these entropy expressions satisfy a Second Law. One such simple example is considered from the class of higher curvature theories where the Lagrangian consists of a polynomial in the Ricci scalar.