https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2018-12332-3
Regular Article
A quantum bound on the thermodynamic description of gravity
1
The Ruppin Academic Center, 40250, Emeq Hefer, Israel
2
The Hadassah Academic College, 91010, Jerusalem, Israel
* e-mail: shaharhod@gmail.com
Received:
4
September
2018
Accepted:
18
October
2018
Published online:
10
December
2018
The seminal works of Bekenstein and Hawking have revealed that black holes have a well-defined thermodynamic description. In particular, it is often stated in the physics literature that black holes, like mundane physical systems, obey the first law of thermodynamics: 
, where 
is the Bekenstein-Hawking temperature of the black hole. In the present paper we test the regime of validity of the thermodynamic description of gravity. In particular, we provide compelling evidence that, due to quantum effects, the first law of thermodynamics breaks down in the low-temperature regime 
of near-extremal black holes (here 
is the radius of the black-hole horizon).
© Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature, 2018
