Divergence on the Horizon

Abstract

Black hole entropy has been shown by 't Hooft to diverge at the horizon, whereas entanglement entropy in general does not. We show that because the region near the horizon is a thermal state, entropy is linear to energy, and energy at a barrier is inversely proportional to barrier slope, and diverges at an infinitely sharp barrier as a result of position/momentum uncertainty. We show that 't Hooft's divergence at the black hole is also an example of momentum/position uncertainty, as seen by the fact that the "brick wall" which corrects it in fact smooths the sharp boundary into a more gradual slope. This removes a major obstacle to identification of black hole entropy with entanglement entropy.