The second law of learning from the past light cone
In the parallel-frame formulation of Einstein gravity the frame field determines the edge modes and gives an observer’s clock and energy. The entropy of a causal diamond is the boost charge at its edge, inferred from a null cut. It obeys an exact nonlinear second law for any radiation and matter obeying the null energy condition, and for a black hole formed by null dust equals the apparent-horizon entropy to all orders. Its time reverse, inferred from the past light cone, decreases as observations accumulate and bounds the generalized entropy compatible with the data.
Authors
- Tomi Koivisto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9403-8565)
Institutions
- National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics (EE)
- University of Tartu (EE)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2026-11-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.66977/xsci.2611.000g
- Primary Topic
- Black Holes and Theoretical Physics
- Type
- preprint