Horizon acoustics of the GHS black hole and the spectrum of AdS2

We uncover a novel structure in Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton gravity: an AdS2 × S2 solution in string frame, which can be obtained by a near-horizon limit of the extreme GHS black hole with dilaton coupling λ ≠ 1. Unlike the Bertotti-Robinson spacetime, our solution has independent length scales for the AdS2 and S2, with ratio controlled by λ. We solve the perturbation problem for this solution, finding the independently propagating towers of states in terms of superpositions of gravitons, photons, and dilatons and their associated effective potentials. These potentials describe modes obeying conformal quantum mechanics, with couplings that we compute, and can be recast as giving the spectrum of the effective masses of the modes. By dictating the conformal weights of boundary operators, this spectrum provides crucial data for any future construction of a holographic dual to these AdS2 × S2 configurations.

Six-point functions and collisions in the black hole interior

In the eternal AdS black hole geometry, we consider two signals sent from the boundaries into the black hole interior shared between the two asymptotic regions. We compute three different out-of-time-order six-point functions to quantify various properties of the collision of these signals behind the horizons: (i) We diagnose the strength of the collision by probing the two-signal state on a late time slice with boundary operators. (ii) We quantify two-sided operator growth, which provides a dual description of the signals meeting in the black hole interior, in terms of the quantum butterfly effect and quantum circuits. (iii) We consider an explicit coupling between the left and right CFTs to make the wormhole traversable and extract information about the collision product from behind the horizon. At a technical level, our results rely on the method of eikonal resummation to obtain the relevant gravitational contributions to Lorentzian six-point functions at all orders in the GN-expansion. We observe that such correlation functions display an intriguing factorization property. We corroborate these results with geodesic computations of six-point functions in two- and three-dimensional gravity.

Incidence coefficients in the Novikov Complex for Morse forms: rationality and exponential growth properties

Let f : M → S 1 be a Morse map, v a transverse f -gradient. Theconstruction of the Novikov complex associates to these data a free chain complexC ∗ (f, v) over the ring Z[t]][t −1 ], generated by the critical points of f and computingthe completed homology module of the corresponding infinite cyclic covering of M .Novikov’s Exponential Growth Conjecture says that the boundary operators in thiscomplex are power series of non-zero convergence raduis.In [12] the author announced the proof of the Novikov conjecture for the case ofC 0 -generic gradients together with several generalizations. The proofs of the firstpart of this work were published in [13]. The present article contains the proofs ofthe second part.There is a refined version of the Novikov complex, defined over a suitable com-pletion of the group ring of the fundamental group. We prove that for a C 0 -genericf -gradient the corresponding incidence coefficients belong to the image in the Novikovring of a (non commutative) localization of the fundamental group ring.The Novikov construction generalizes also to the case of Morse 1-forms. In thiscase the corresponding incidence coefiicients belong to a certain completion of thering of integral Laurent polynomials of several variables. We prove that for a givenMorse form ω and a C 0 -generic ω-gradient these incidence coefficients are rationalfunctions.The incidence coefficients in the Novikov complex are obtained by counting thealgebraic number of the trajectories of the gradient, joining the zeros of the Morseform. There is V.I.Arnold’s version of the exponential growth conjecture, whichconcerns the total number of trajectories. We confirm this stronger form of theconjecture for any given Morse form and a C 0 -dense set of its gradients.We give an example of explicit computation of the Novikov complex.

BCFT entanglement entropy at large central charge and the black hole interior

In this note, we consider entanglement and Renyi entropies for spatial subsystems of a boundary conformal field theory (BCFT) or of a CFT in a state constructed using a Euclidean BCFT path integral. Holographic calculations suggest that these entropies undergo phase transitions as a function of time or parameters describing the subsystem; these arise from a change in topology of the RT surface. In recent applications to black hole physics, such transitions have been seen to govern whether or not the bulk entanglement wedge of a (B)CFT region includes a portion of the black hole interior and have played a crucial role in understanding the semiclassical origin of the Page curve for evaporating black holes.In this paper, we reproduce these holographic results via direct (B)CFT calculations. Using the replica method, the entropies are related to correlation functions of twist operators in a Euclidean BCFT. These correlations functions can be expanded in various channels involving intermediate bulk or boundary operators. Under certain sparseness conditions on the spectrum and OPE coefficients of bulk and boundary operators, we show that the twist correlators are dominated by the vacuum block in a single channel, with the relevant channel depending on the position of the twists. These transitions between channels lead to the holographically observed phase transitions in entropies.

R 2 corrected AdS2 holography

We approach the problem of constructing an explicit holographic dictionary for the AdS2/CFT1 correspondence in the context of higher derivative gravitational actions in AdS2 space-times. These actions are obtained by an S2 reduction of four-dimensional $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 2 Wilsonian effective actions with Weyl squared interactions restricted to constant scalar backgrounds. BPS black hole near-horizon space-times fall into this class of backgrounds, and by identifying the boundary operators dual to the bulk fields, we explicitly show how the Wald entropy of the BPS black hole is holographically encoded in the anomalous transformation of the operator dual to a composite bulk field. Additionally, using a 2d/3d lift, we show that the CFT holographically dual to AdS2 is naturally embedded in the chiral half of the CFT2 dual to the AdS3 space-time, and we identify the specific operator in CFT1 that encodes the chiral central charge of the CFT2.

On the time evolution of cosmological correlators

Developing our understanding of how correlations evolve during inflation is crucial if we are to extract information about the early Universe from our late-time observables. To that end, we revisit the time evolution of scalar field correlators on de Sitter spacetime in the Schrödinger picture. By direct manipulation of the Schrödinger equation, we write down simple “equations of motion” for the coefficients which determine the wavefunction. Rather than specify a particular interaction Hamiltonian, we assume only very basic properties (unitarity, de Sitter invariance and locality) to derive general consequences for the wavefunction’s evolution. In particular, we identify a number of “constants of motion” — properties of the initial state which are conserved by any unitary dynamics — and show how this can be used to partially fix the cubic and quartic wavefunction coefficients at weak coupling. We further constrain the time evolution by deriving constraints from the de Sitter isometries and show that these reduce to the familiar conformal Ward identities at late times. Finally, we show how the evolution of a state from the conformal boundary into the bulk can be described via a number of “transfer functions” which are analytic outside the horizon for any local interaction. These objects exhibit divergences for particular values of the scalar mass, and we show how such divergences can be removed by a renormalisation of the boundary wavefunction — this is equivalent to performing a “Boundary Operator Expansion” which expresses the bulk operators in terms of regulated boundary operators. Altogether, this improved understanding of the wavefunction in the bulk of de Sitter complements recent advances from a purely boundary perspective, and reveals new structure in cosmological correlators.

Boundary RG flows for fermions and the mod 2 anomaly

Boundary conditions for Majorana fermions in d=1+1d=1+1 dimensions fall into one of two SPT phases, associated to a mod 2 anomaly. Here we consider boundary conditions for 2N2N Majorana fermions that preserve a U(1)^NU(1)N symmetry. In general, the left-moving and right-moving fermions carry different charges under this symmetry, and implementation of the boundary condition requires new degrees of freedom, which manifest themselves in a boundary central charge gg. We follow the boundary RG flow induced by turning on relevant boundary operators. We identify the infra-red boundary state. In many cases, the boundary state flips SPT class, resulting in an emergent Majorana mode needed to cancel the anomaly. We show that the ratio of UV and IR boundary central charges is given by g^2_{IR} / g^2_{UV} = \mathrm{dim} \, \mathcal{O}gIR2/gUV2=dim𝒪, the dimension of the perturbing boundary operator. Any relevant operator necessarily has \mathrm{dim} \, \mathcal{O} < 1dim𝒪<1, ensuring that the central charge decreases in accord with the gg-theorem.

CFT in AdS and boundary RG flows

Using the fact that flat space with a boundary is related by a Weyl transformation to anti-de Sitter (AdS) space, one may study observables in boundary conformal field theory (BCFT) by placing a CFT in AdS. In addition to correlation functions of local operators, a quantity of interest is the free energy of the CFT computed on the AdS space with hyperbolic ball metric, i.e. with a spherical boundary. It is natural to expect that the AdS free energy can be used to define a quantity that decreases under boundary renormalization group flows. We test this idea by discussing in detail the case of the large N critical O(N) model in general dimension d, as well as its perturbative descriptions in the epsilon-expansion. Using the AdS approach, we recover the various known boundary critical behaviors of the model, and we compute the free energy for each boundary fixed point, finding results which are consistent with the conjectured F-theorem in a continuous range of dimensions. Finally, we also use the AdS setup to compute correlation functions and extract some of the BCFT data. In particular, we show that using the bulk equations of motion, in conjunction with crossing symmetry, gives an efficient way to constrain bulk two-point functions and extract anomalous dimensions of boundary operators.