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Gravity from equilibrium thermodynamics of stretched light cones

Ana Alonso-Serrano1,2,*, Luis J. Garay3,†, Marek Liška4,‡, and Celia López Pineros3

  • *Contact author: ana.alonso.serrano@aei.mpg.de
  • †Contact author: luisj.garay@ucm.es
  • ‡Contact author: liskama4@stp.dias.ie
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 124026 – Published 4 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/y9rz-b88v

Abstract

This work digs into the connection between gravity and thermodynamics of stretched light cones (SLC). They are associated with uniformly accelerating observers, who endow the SLC with a physical notion of temperature via the Unruh effect. We compute the expansion, shear, and vorticity of the SLC to fully study its dynamics and account for the possibility of previously predicted nonequilibrium entropy production. For consistency, we prove the equivalence of the two different geometrical methods available for studying the SLCs’ properties. Then, we apply the energy balance and use Clausius’ relation to relate the geometrical properties of the SLC with energy fluxes crossing its surface, showing that it encodes the equations governing the gravitational dynamics. We show here how this analysis can be fully carried in terms of equilibrium thermodynamics due to the vanishing of shear, and how one can identify a work term related to the acceleration of the observer.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 124026– Published 4 December, 2025
  • Received 15 September 2025
  • Accepted 18 November 2025
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