Towards Thermodynamics of Universal Horizons in Einstein-aether Theory

Holography grew out of black hole thermodynamics, which relies on the causal structure and general covariance of general relativity. In Einstein-aether theory, a generally covariant theory with a dynamical timelike unit vector, every solution breaks local Lorentz invariance, thereby grossly modifying the causal structure of gravity. However, there are still absolute causal boundaries, called "universal horizons," which are not Killing horizons yet obey a first law of black hole mechanics and must have an entropy if they do not violate a generalized second law. We couple a scalar field to the timelike vector and show via the tunneling approach that the universal horizon radiates as a blackbody at a fixed temperature, even if the scalar field equations also violate local Lorentz invariance. This suggests that the class of holographic theories may be much broader than currently assumed. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.071301