Gravitational Calorimetry

I generalize the quasilocal formulation of thermodynamics of Brown and York to include dilaton theories of gravity as well as Abelian and Yang-Mills gauge matter fields with possible dilaton couplings. The resulting formulation is applicable to a large class of theories including two-dimensional toy models and the low energy limit of string theory as well as to many types of matter such as massless scalar fields, electromagnetism, Yang-Mills fields, and matter induced cosmological constants. I use this formalism to evaluate the thermodynamic variables for several black hole spacetimes. I find that the formulation can handle black hole spacetimes that are not asymptotically flat as well as rotating black hole spacetimes, and black hole spacetimes possessing a dilaton field, an electric charge, and a magnetic charge. c ©Jolien D. E. Creighton 1996 ∗A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics