Microscopic origin of the entropy of single-sided black holes

A bstract In this paper, we provide a state-counting derivation of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy formula for single-sided black holes. We firstly articulate the concept of the black hole microstates. Then we construct explicit mircostates of single-sided black holes in (2+1)-dimensional spacetimes with a negative cosmological constant. These microstates are constructed by putting a Karch-Randall brane behind the black hole horizon. Their difference is described by different interior excitations which gravitationally backreact. We show that these microstates have nonperturbatively small overlaps with each other. As a result, we use this fact to give a state-counting derivation of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy formula for single-sided black holes. At the end, we notice that there are no negative norm states in the resulting Hilbert space of the black hole microstates which in turn ensures unitarity. All calculations in this paper are analytic and can be easily generalized to higher spacetime dimensions.