Black holes, baby universes, and random matrices
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- There is a lot of evidence that black holes follow the usual rules of quantum mechanics, and exhibit all of the fundamental properties of quantum systems such as a discrete set of energy levels. However, many of these properties are difficult to see directly in gravity; there is an apparent tension between the gravitational description of black holes in terms of smooth geometry and the discrete 'quantum' aspects of quantum mechanics. In this work we focus on understanding certain probes of the discreteness of the black hole energy spectrum which exhibit this tension, such as an averaged version of the two-point function of operators widely separated in time outside of a black hole in AdS space. The chaotic dynamics of black holes indicates that its energy levels should have random matrix statistics, and its energy eigenstates should obey the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis. These expectations allow us to make precise predictions for the behavior of our probes. We find strong evidence that contributions from spacetime geometries with nontrivial topology, and even arbitrary numbers of disconnected components, are responsible for reproducing the expected behavior of our probes. Physically, these contributions correspond to including effects from the absorption and emission of closed 'baby' universes from the black hole spacetime. These processes have a small amplitude, but may provide the dominant contribution to the transitions between very distinct states of the black hole
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2020; ©2020 |
| Publication date | 2020; 2020 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Saad, Philip |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Shenker, Stephen Hart, 1953- |
| Thesis advisor | Shenker, Stephen Hart, 1953- |
| Thesis advisor | Hartnoll, Sean |
| Thesis advisor | Susskind, Leonard |
| Degree committee member | Hartnoll, Sean |
| Degree committee member | Susskind, Leonard |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Physics |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Phil Saad |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Physics |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2020 by Philip Saad
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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