| An elegant method to study black hole thermodynamics is the Euclidean path integral formulation. The partition function is dominated by the classical paths, with small contributions from semi-classical paths, if three conditions hold. Typically all of them are violated, unless an appropriate boundary counterterm is added. I demonstrate how to construct the latter uniquely within the context of dilaton gravity in two dimensions. This leads to consistent thermodynamics in the canonical ensemble for a large class of black holes in arbitrary dimensions. |
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