Black Hole Entropy and Renormalization

Using a new regulator, we examine 't Hooft’s approach for evaluating black hole entropy through a statistical-mechanical counting of states for a scalar field propagating outside the event horizon. We find that this calculation yields precisely the one-loop renormalization of the standard Bekenstein-Hawking formula, $S=\text{Cal}A\mathrm{/}(4G)$. Thus our result provides evidence confirming a suggestion by Susskind and Uglum regarding black hole entropy.