We study the one-sided time evolution of thermofield double (TFD) states in random matrix theory, where the Hamiltonian is taken to be a
D×D random matrix drawn from a unitarily invariant emsemble of Hermitian matrices. We argue that the Krylov basis with the maximally entangled state taken as the initial vector gives a semiclassical Hilbert space description of these TFD states in random matrix theory at any
O(1) temperature and time in the
D→∞ limit, very analogous to the ``chord Hilbert space'' construction in the double-scaled SYK (DSSYK) model. We study this semiclassical description in detail for ensembles where the spectral density in the
D→∞ limit is even, compactly supported on an interval and has square root edges. With a few more conditions on the analytic structure of the spectral density, we observe that the semiclassical Hamiltonian has the same asymptotic behavior at large Krylov depth as that of DSSYK, with the corresponding parameter
q=e−λ being related to the location of the nearest zero of the spectral density away from the spectral cut. Furthermore, in a large class of models corresponding to ultraviolet deformations of the DSSYK spectral density, i.e., where the spectrum in the UV is modified while leaving the near-edge behavior unchanged, we show that the semiclassical effective Hamiltonian in the Krylov basis reduces to the Liouville Hamiltonian of JT gravity in a low-energy, continuum limit. This suggests that our semiclassical Hilbert space should be interpreted as the bulk Hilbert space of a dual gravity description.
We derive a large-N wormhole saddle in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model for the variance of the thermal one-point function of a heavy operator across realizations of the microscopic couplings. We propose that this saddle describes a double trumpet geometry. In the double-scaling limit, we express the wormhole as a transition amplitude in an emergent bulk Hilbert space of chords connecting the two boundaries. In the Schwarzian limit, the chords proliferate and the wormhole defines a quantum transition amplitude in the open-universe Hilbert space of Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity. Comparing the SYK wormhole amplitude with its counterpart in JT gravity coupled to matter provides a direct test of the heavy-operator randomness hypothesis in SYK. The microscopic SYK couplings specify the α-parameters of the wormhole. For a fixed realization of the couplings, we compute the observable in the corresponding α-state. We provide the bulk wavefunction of the associated half-wormhole, which exhibits erratic correlations in the length basis that do not self-average. We extend the bulk description to the Hilbert space of a closed universe. We point out that the correlation chords from which the wormhole geometry emerges structurally resemble local observer worldlines.
We construct families of deformations of the double-scaled SYK (DSSYK) model and investigate their bulk interpretation. We introduce microscopic deformations of the SYK model which, after ensemble averaging and in the double-scaling limit, are described by a transfer matrix encoding the recurrence relations of basic orthogonal polynomials in the q-Askey scheme. For certain families of deformations in the semiclassical limit at finite temperature, the chord number (encoding Krylov complexity) corresponds to the length of an Einstein-Rosen bridge connecting an End-Of-The-World brane to an anti-de Sitter asymptotic boundary. By increasing one of the deformation parameters, the models eventually exhibit discrete energy levels, signaling a new geometric transition in sine dilaton gravity. Via the SYK-Schur duality, Krylov complexity also admits a representation-theoretic interpretation as the spread of the SU(2) spin in the index of an
N=2 SU(2) gauge theory. We study the operator algebras of the deformed theories. The algebras can be type II
1 or type I
∞ factors, depending on the operators that are included. The entanglement entropy between the type II
1 algebras for a pure state manifests as an extremal surface through the Ryu-Takayanagi formula. We discuss connections between our results and the emergence of baby universes in the bulk.
A bstract In this work, we formulate the holographic dictionary for the double-scaled SYK (DSSYK) model with matter operators. Based on the two-sided Hartle-Hawking (HH) state, we derive several properties of the DSSYK model, without making assumptions about the specific dual theory, including its semiclassical thermodynamics, correlation functions, and Krylov complexity. We derive these quantities from the saddle points of the DSSYK path integral preparing the HH state. We also construct a Lanczos algorithm that simultaneously evaluates Krylov state and operator complexity in the two-sided Hamiltonian system including finite temperature effects. In the semiclassical limit, both measures are encoded in the saddle points of the path integral. They have a bulk interpretation in terms of minimal geodesic lengths in an effective AdS 2 space with matter backreaction. Different saddle points correspond to geodesic distances with different evolution, and they display different scrambling properties. We also discuss about the quantization of the bulk theory dual to the DSSYK model. At last, we formulate the double-scaled algebra [ JHEP 11 (2022) 060] in bulk terms, and the dual entry of the proper radial momentum of a bulk probe.
The double-scaled limit of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model takes the number of fermions and their interaction number to infinity in a coordinated way. In this limit, two entangled copies of the SYK model have a bulk description of sorts known as the “chord Hilbert space”. We analyze a symmetry algebra acting on this Hilbert space, generated by the two Hamiltonians together with a two-sided operator known as the chord number. This algebra is a deformation of the JT gravitational algebra, and it contains a subalgebra that is a deformation of the \mathfrak{sl}_2 𝔰 𝔩 2 near-horizon symmetries. The subalgebra has finite-dimensional unitary representations corresponding to matter moving around in a discrete Einstein-Rosen bridge. In a semiclassical limit the discreteness disappears and the subalgebra simplifies to \mathfrak{sl}_2 𝔰 𝔩 2 , but with a non-standard action on the boundary time coordinate. One can make the action of \mathfrak{sl}_2 𝔰 𝔩 2 algebra more standard at the cost of extending the boundary circle to include some “fake” portions. Such fake portions also accommodate certain subtle states that survive the semi-classical limit, despite oscillating on the scale of discreteness. We discuss applications of this algebra, including sub-maximal chaos, the traversable wormhole protocol, and a two-sided OPE.