This paper presents a non-string-theoretic calculation of the microcanonical entropy of relic integer-spin Hawking radiation, at fixed total energy E, from an evanescent, neutral, non-rotating four-dimensional black hole. The only conserved macroscopic quantity is the total energy E which, for a black hole that evaporates completely, is the total energy of the relic radiation. Through a boundary-value approach, in which data for massless, integer-spin perturbations are set on initial and final space-like hypersurfaces, the statistical-mechanics problem becomes, in effect, a one-dimensional problem, with the "volume" of the system determined by the real part of the time separation at spatial infinity — the variable conjugate to the total energy. We count the number of field configurations on the final space-like hypersurface that have total energy E, assuming that initial perturbations are weak. We find that the density of states resembles the well-known Cardy formula. The Bekenstein–Hawking entropy is recovered if the real part of the asymptotic time separation is of the order of the semi-classical black-hole lifetime. We thereby obtain a statistical interpretation of black-hole entropy. Corrections to the microcanonical entropy are computed, and we find agreement with other approaches in terms of a logarithmic correction to the black-hole area law, which is universal (independent of black-hole parameters). This result depends crucially upon the discreteness of the energy levels. We discuss the similarities of our approach with the transition from the black-hole to the fundamental-string regime in the final stages of black-hole evaporation. In addition, we find that the squared coupling, g2, which regulates the transition from a black hole to a highly-excited string state, and vice versa, can be related to the angle, δ, in the complex-time plane, through which we continue analytically the time separation at spatial infinity. Thus, in this scenario, the strong-coupling regime corresponds to a Euclidean black hole, while the physical limit of a Lorentzian space–time (the limit as δ → 0+) corresponds to the weak-coupling regime. This resembles the transition of a black hole to a highly-excited string-like state, which subsequently decays into massless particles, thereby avoiding the naked singularity.
Quantum gravity of Kerr-Schild spacetimes and the logarithmic correction to Schwarzschild black hole entropy