Rényi second laws for black holes

Abstract: Hawking's black hole area theorem provides a geometric realization of the second law of thermodynamics and constrains gravitational processes. In this work we explore a one-parameter extension of this constraint formulated in terms of the monotonicity properties of R\'enyi entropies. We focus on black hole mergers in asymptotically AdS space and determine new restrictions which these R\'enyi second laws impose on the final state. We evaluate the entropic inequalities starting from the thermodynamic ensembles description of black hole geometries, and find that for many situations they set more stringent bounds than those imposed by the area increase theorem.