Light Cone Thermodynamics: Quasi-Local Formalism
Abstract
Inspired by black hole thermodynamics and other results suggesting that general relativity has some intrinsic connection with thermodynamics, this work aims to establish a quasi-local thermodynamic formalism in general spacetimes. With this purpose, we generalize the Bondi-Sachs formalism to past light cones associated with an arbitrary worldline. From this generalization, we demonstrate the emission of Hawking radiation in a quasi-local context through a few examples, suggesting that it may occur under mild conditions. In addition, we argue that an "irreversible inequality" is satisfied in typical gravitational systems, indicating that an analogue of the second law may be established. Together with a definition of internal energy derived from the Landau-Lifshitz pseudotensor, these results are used to construct a postulational framework that generalizes classical thermodynamics in order to include the dynamics of spacetime. As a consequence, it is possible to define the rest-mass density from thermodynamic variables, decoupling it from the dynamics of constituent numbers.
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BibTeX
@misc{barbosa2026light,
title = {{Light Cone Thermodynamics: Quasi-Local Formalism}},
author = {Matheus G. Barbosa},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.25477},
eprint = {2609.25477},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25477},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Light Cone Thermodynamics: Quasi-Local Formalism
AU - Matheus G. Barbosa
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.25477
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25477
AB - Inspired by black hole thermodynamics and other results suggesting that general relativity has some intrinsic connection with thermodynamics, this work aims to establish a quasi-local thermodynamic formalism in general spacetimes. With this purpose, we generalize the Bondi-Sachs formalism to past light cones associated with an arbitrary worldline. From this generalization, we demonstrate the emission of Hawking radiation in a quasi-local context through a few examples, suggesting that it may occur under mild conditions. In addition, we argue that an "irreversible inequality" is satisfied in typical gravitational systems, indicating that an analogue of the second law may be established. Together with a definition of internal energy derived from the Landau-Lifshitz pseudotensor, these results are used to construct a postulational framework that generalizes classical thermodynamics in order to include the dynamics of spacetime. As a consequence, it is possible to define the rest-mass density from thermodynamic variables, decoupling it from the dynamics of constituent numbers.
ER -