Renormalization of black hole entropy

Abstract

We review the renormalization of one-loop effective action for gravity coupled to a scalar field and that of the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of a black hole plus the statistical entropy of the scalar field. It is found that the total entropy of the black hole's geometric entropy and the statistical entropy yields the renormalized Bekenstein-Hawking area-law of black hole entropy only for even dimensional Reissner-Nördstrom (Schwarzschild) black holes. We discuss the problem of the microscopic origin of black hole entropy in connection with the renormalization of black hole entropy.