Linearised Second Law for Higher Curvature Gravity and Non-Minimally Coupled Vector Fields

Abstract: Expanding the work of arXiv:1504.08040, we show that black holes obey a second law for linear perturbations to bifurcate Killing horizons, in any covariant higher curvature gravity coupled to scalar and vector fields. The vector fields do not need to be gauged, and (like the scalars) can have arbitrary non-minimal couplings to the metric. The increasing entropy has a natural expression in covariant phase space language, which makes it manifestly invariant under JKM ambiguities. An explicit entropy formula is given for f(Riemann) gravity coupled to vectors, where at most one derivative acts on each vector. Besides the previously known curvature terms, there are three extra terms involving differentiating the Lagrangian by the symmetric vector derivative (which therefore vanish for gauge fields).