Baby universes and worldline field theories

The quantum gravity path integral involves a sum over topologies that invites comparisons to worldsheet string theory and to Feynman diagrams of quantum field theory. However, the latter are naturally associated with the non-abelian algebra of quantum fields, while the former has been argued to define an abelian algebra of superselected observables associated with partition-function-like quantities at an asymptotic boundary. We resolve this apparent tension by pointing out a variety of discrete choices that must be made in constructing a Hilbert space from such path integrals, and arguing that the natural choices for quantum gravity differ from those used to construct QFTs. We focus on one-dimensional models of quantum gravity in order to make direct comparisons with worldline QFT.

Bending the Bruhat-Tits tree. Part II. The p-adic BTZ black hole and local diffeomorphism on the Bruhat-Tits tree

In this sequel to [1], we take up a second approach in bending the Bruhat-Tits tree. Inspired by the BTZ black hole connection, we demonstrate that one can transplant it to the Bruhat-Tits tree, at the cost of defining a novel “exponential function” on the p-adic numbers that is hinted by the BT tree. We demonstrate that the PGL(2, Qp) Wilson lines [2] evaluated on this analogue BTZ connection is indeed consistent with correlation functions of a CFT at finite temperatures. We demonstrate that these results match up with the tensor network reconstruction of the p-adic AdS/CFT with a different cutoff surface at the asymptotic boundary, and give explicit coordinate transformations that relate the analogue p-adic BTZ background and the “pure” Bruhat-Tits tree background. This is an interesting demonstration that despite the purported lack of descendents in p-adic CFTs, there exists non-trivial local Weyl transformations in the CFT corresponding to diffeomorphism in the Bruhat-Tits tree.

Asymptotic Symmetries in the BV-BFV Formalism

We show how to derive asymptotic charges for field theories on manifolds with “asymptotic” boundary, using the BV-BFV formalism. We also prove that the conservation of said charges follows naturally from the vanishing of the BFV boundary action, and show how this construction generalises Noether’s procedure. Using the BV-BFV viewpoint, we resolve the controversy present in the literature, regarding the status of large gauge transformation as symmetries of the asymptotic structure. We show that even though the symplectic structure at the asymptotic boundary is not preserved under these transformations, the failure is governed by the corner data, in agreement with the BV-BFV philosophy. We analyse in detail the case of electrodynamics and the interacting scalar field, for which we present a new type of duality to a sourced two-form model.

Holographic duality for Ising CFT with boundary

We extend the holographic duality between 3d pure gravity and 2d Ising CFT proposed in ref. [1] to CFTs with boundaries. Besides the usual asymptotic boundary, the dual bulk spacetime now has a real cutoff, on which live branes with finite tension, giving Neumann boundary condition on the metric tensor. The strongly coupled bulk theory requires that we dress the well-known semiclassical AdS/BCFT answer with boundary gravitons, turning the partition function into the form of Virasoro characters. Using this duality, we relate the brane tensions to the modular S-matrix elements of the dual BCFT and derive the transformation between gravitational solutions with different brane tensions under modular S action.

Geometrizing $$ T\overline{T} $$

The $$ T\overline{T} $$ T T ¯ deformation can be formulated as a dynamical change of coordinates. We establish and generalize this relation to curved spaces by coupling the undeformed theory to 2d gravity. For curved space the dynamical change of coordinates is supplemented by a dynamical Weyl transformation. We also sharpen the holographic correspondence to cutoff AdS3 in multiple ways. First, we show that the action of the annular region between the cutoff surface and the boundary of AdS3 is given precisely by the $$ T\overline{T} $$ T T ¯ operator integrated over either the cutoff surface or the asymptotic boundary. Then we derive dynamical coordinate and Weyl transformations directly from the bulk. Finally, we reproduce the flow equation for the deformed stress tensor from the cutoff geometry.