Coadjoint orbit action of Virasoro group and two-dimensional quantum gravity dual to SYK/tensor models

The Nambu-Goldstone (NG) bosons of the SYK model are described by a coset space Diff/$\mathbb{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$, where Diff, or Virasoro group, is the group of diffeomorphisms of the time coordinate valued on the real line or a circle. It is known that the coadjoint orbit action of Diff naturally turns out to be the two-dimensional quantum gravity action of Polyakov without cosmological constant, in a certain gauge, in an asymptotically flat spacetime. Motivated by this observation, we explore Polyakov action with cosmological constant and boundary terms, and study the possibility of such a two-dimensional quantum gravity model being the AdS dual to the low energy (NG) sector of the SYK model. We find strong evidences for this duality: (a) the bulk action admits an exact family of asymptotically AdS$_2$ spacetimes, parameterized by Diff/$\mathbb{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$, in addition to a fixed conformal factor of a simple functional form; (b) the bulk path integral reduces to a path integral over Diff/$\mathbb{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$ with a Schwarzian action; (c) the low temperature free energy qualitatively agrees with that of the SYK model. We show, up to quadratic order, how to couple an infinite series of bulk scalars to the Polyakov model and show that it reproduces the coupling of the higher modes of the SYK model with the NG bosons.Comment: 2+33 pages (including Appendices), 3 figures; v2 has revised discussion of orbits in Section 2, typos corrected; v3 has a new appendix analysing the off-shell equations of motion; v4 is published version with some more typos corrected; v5 corrects some typesetting error

All tree level scattering amplitudes in Chern-Simons theories with fundamental matter

We show that Britto-Cachazo-Feng-Witten (BCFW) recursion relations can be used to compute all tree level scattering amplitudes in terms of $2\rightarrow2$ scattering amplitude in $U(N)$ ${\mathcal N}=2$ Chern-Simons (CS) theory coupled to matter in fundamental representation. As a byproduct, we also obtain a recursion relation for the CS theory coupled to regular fermions, even though in this case standard BCFW deformations do not have a good asymptotic behaviour. Moreover at large $N$, $2\rightarrow 2$ scattering can be computed exactly to all orders in 't Hooft coupling as was done in earlier works by some of the authors. In particular, for ${\mathcal N}=2$ theory, it was shown that $2\rightarrow 2$ scattering is tree level exact to all orders except in the anyonic channel arXiv:1505.06571, where it gets renormalized by a simple function of 't Hooft coupling. This suggests that it may be possible to compute the all loop exact result for arbitrary higher point scattering amplitudes at large $N$.Comment: RevTEX 4.1, 5 pages+6 Appendices, 7 figures; V2 Published versio

Dual Superconformal Symmetry of N=2{\cal N}=2 Chern-Simons theory with Fundamental Matter at Large NN

Dual conformal symmetry and Yangian symmetry are symmetries of amplitudes that have aided the study of scattering amplitudes in highly supersymmetric theories like ${\cal N}=4$ SYM and ABJM. However, in general such symmetries are absent from the theories with lesser or no supersymmetry. In this paper, we show that the tree level $2\to 2$ scattering amplitude in the 3d ${\cal N}=2$ Chern-Simons theory coupled to a fundamental chiral multiplet is dual superconformal invariant. In the 't Hooft large $N$ limit, the $2\to 2$ scattering amplitude in this theory has been shown to be tree-level exact in non-anyonic channels, while having only an overall multiplicative coupling dependent renormalisation in the anyonic channel. Therefore, the dual superconformal symmetry that we demonstrate in this paper is all loop exact. This is unlike the previously studied highly supersymmetric theories where dual superconformal symmetry is anomalous at loop levels. Furthermore, we reverse the argument to study the extent to which dual superconformal invariance fixes the scattering amplitude in an ${\cal N}=2$ supersymmetric theory. We demonstrate that requiring the dual superconformal invariance completely fixes the momentum dependence of the $2\to2$ amplitude, while the coupling constant dependence remain unfixed. Further, we use a combination of parity invariance, unitarity and self-duality of the amplitude to constrain the coupling dependence of scattering amplitude.Comment: V2 Published versio

Charged Eigenstate Thermalization, Euclidean Wormholes and Global Symmetries in Quantum Gravity

We generalize the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis to systems with global symmetries. We present two versions, one with microscopic charge conservation and one with exponentially suppressed violations. They agree for correlation functions of simple operators, but differ in the variance of charged one-point functions at finite temperature. We then apply these ideas to holography and to gravitational low-energy effective theories with a global symmetry. We show that Euclidean wormholes predict a non-zero variance for charged one-point functions, which is incompatible with microscopic charge conservation. This implies that global symmetries in quantum gravity must either be gauged or explicitly broken by non-perturbative effects.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure; v2 references and comments added, correction of the Wilson line argument. Version as published in Scipos

From operator statistics to wormholes

For a generic quantum many-body system, the quantum ergodic regime is defined as the limit in which the spectrum of the system resembles that of a random matrix theory (RMT) in the corresponding symmetry class. In this paper we analyse the time dependence of correlation functions of operators. We study them in the ergodic limit as well as their approach to the ergodic limit which is controlled by non-universal massive modes. An effective field theory (EFT) corresponding to the causal symmetry and its breaking describes the ergodic phase. We demonstrate that the resulting Goldstone-mode theory has a topological expansion, analogous to the one described in arXiv:2008.02271 with added operator sources, whose leading non-trivial topologies give rise to the universal ramp seen in correlation functions. The ergodic behaviour of operators in our EFT is seen to result from a combination of RMT-like spectral statistics and Haar averaging over wave-functions. Furthermore we analytically capture the plateau behaviour by taking into account the contribution of a second saddle point. Our main interest are quantum many-body systems with holographic duals and we explicitly establish the validity of the EFT description in the SYK-class of models, starting from their microscopic description. By studying the tower of massive modes above the Goldstone sector we get a detailed understanding of how the ergodic EFT phase is approached and derive the relevant Thouless time scales. We point out that the topological expansion can be reinterpreted in terms of contributions of bulk wormholes and baby-universes.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figures, 3 appendices; v2: added some reference

On the Dynamics of Near-Extremal Black Holes

We analyse the dynamics of near-extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om black holes in asymptotically four-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space (AdS$_4$). We work in the spherically symmetric approximation and study the thermodynamics and the response to a probe scalar field. We find that the behaviour of the system, at low energies and to leading order in our approximations, is well described by the Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) model of gravity. In fact, this behaviour can be understood from symmetry considerations and arises due to the breaking of time reparametrisation invariance. The JT model has been analysed in considerable detail recently and related to the behaviour of the SYK model. Our results indicate that features in these models which arise from symmetry considerations alone are more general and present quite universally in near-extremal black holes.Comment: 44 (=26+18) pages, 1 figure, 6 appendices; v2: references added; v3: minor changes made; v4: additional references added, version accepted in JHE

Approximate CFTs and Random Tensor Models

A key issue in both the field of quantum chaos and quantum gravity is an effective description of chaotic conformal field theories (CFTs), that is CFTs that have a quantum ergodic limit. We develop a framework incorporating the constraints of conformal symmetry and locality, allowing the definition of ensembles of `CFT data'. These ensembles take on the same role as the ensembles of random Hamiltonians in more conventional quantum ergodic phases of many-body quantum systems. To describe individual members of the ensembles, we introduce the notion of approximate CFT, defined as a collection of `CFT data' satisfying the usual CFT constraints approximately, i.e. up to small deviations. We show that they generically exist by providing concrete examples. Ensembles of approximate CFTs are very natural in holography, as every member of the ensemble is indistinguishable from a true CFT for low-energy probes that only have access to information from semi-classical gravity. To specify these ensembles, we impose successively higher moments of the CFT constraints. Lastly, we propose a theory of pure gravity in AdS$_3$ as a random matrix/tensor model implementing approximate CFT constraints. This tensor model is the maximum ignorance ensemble compatible with conformal symmetry, crossing invariance, and a primary gap to the black-hole threshold. The resulting theory is a random matrix/tensor model governed by the Virasoro 6j-symbol.Comment: 45 pages + appendices, 6 figure