Abstract. We review the construction of the universal Hamilton-Jacobi counterterm for dilaton gravity in two dimensions, derive the corresponding result in the Cartan formulation and elaborate further upon black hole thermodynamics and semi-classical corrections. Applications include spherically

Abstract. I describe some examples in support of the conjecture that the horizon area of a near equilibrium black hole is an adiabatic invariant. These include a Schwarzschild black hole perturbed by quasistatic scalar fields (which may be minimally or nonminimally coupled to curvature), a Kerr

-section of D-branes and the low energy absorption cross-section for black holes. We discuss various issues related to the information question for black holes. Talk given at Strings ’96, Santa Barbara, with some extensions and additions.

This thesis is devoted to trying to find a microscopic quantum description of black holes. We consider black holes in string theory which is a quantum theory of gravity. We find that the “area law ” black hole entropy for extremal and near-extremal charged black holes arises from counting

We review the present status of black hole thermodynamics. Our review includes discussion of classical black hole thermodynamics, Hawking radiation from black holes, the generalized second law, and the issue of entropy bounds. A brief survey also is given of approaches to the calculation of black

× S 2 and K3 bubbles. Comparison with the instantons for pair creation of black holes shows that the S 2 × S 2 bubbles can be interpreted as closed loops of virtual black holes. It is shown that scattering in such topological fluctuations leads to loss of quantum coherence, or in other words, to a

Abstract: Black holes whose near-horizon geometries are locally, but not necessarily globally, AdS 3 (three-dimensional anti-de Sitter space) are considered. Using the fact that quantum gravity on AdS 3 is a conformal field theory, we microscopically compute the black hole entropy from

We propose a method for measuring the black hole charge by imaging a black hole shadow in a galactic center by future interferometers. Even when the black hole is uncharged, it is possible to confirm the charge neutrality by this method. We first derive the analytic formulae of the black hole

black holes

Abstract: We propose that in quantum gravity one needs to impose a final state boundary condition at black hole singularities. This resolves the apparent contradiction between string theory and semiclassical arguments over whether black hole evaporation is unitary. Keywords: Black Holes in String