Thermodynamics of Many Black Holes

Abstract

We discuss the thermodynamics of an array of collinear black holes which may be accelerating. We prove a general First Law, including variations in the tensions of strings linking and accelerating the black holes. We analyse the implications of the First Law in a number of instructive cases, including that of the C-metric, and relate our findings to the previously obtained thermodynamics of slowly accelerating black holes in anti-de Sitter spacetime. The concept of thermodynamic length is found to be robust and a Christoudoulou-Ruffini formula for the C-metric is shown.