Entanglement entropy of black holes from the first law of thermodynamics

Abstract: We compute the entanglement entropy of quantum matter in spacetimes with a Killing horizon entirely on-shell, by integrating the first law of thermodynamics along a one-parameter family of equilibrium backgrounds labelled by the Hawking temperature. This yields a closed expression in terms of the renormalized stress-energy tensor and the Killing vector, finite by construction, with no replicas and no conical singularities. Its covariant form agrees with the matter terms of the Bardeen--Carter--Hawking mass variation formula. We show in details that for static patch of de Sitter space and for the non-rotating BTZ black hole it reproduces the conical entropy exactly, contact term $Q$ included.