Based on a canonical framework, we investigate the critical behavior of Born-Infeld AdS black holes in higher dimensions. As a special case, considering the appropriate limit, we also analyze the critical phenomena for Reissner-Nordstrom AdS black holes. The critical points are marked by the divergences in the heat capacity at constant charge. The static critical exponents associated with various thermodynamic entities are computed and shown to satisfy the thermodynamic scaling laws. These scaling laws have also been found to be compatible with the static scaling hypothesis. Furthermore, we show that the values of these exponents are universal and do not depend on the spatial dimensionality of the AdS space. We also provide a suggestive way to calculate the critical exponents associated with the spatial correlation which satisfy the scaling laws of the second kind.

• Received 30 March 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.85.104043