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arXiv:2306.16687 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Bulk reconstruction from generalized free fields

Tamra Nebabu, Xiao-Liang Qi

Published Aug 14, 2024• 6 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A bstract We propose a generalized protocol for constructing a dual free bulk theory from any boundary model of generalized free fields (GFFs). To construct the bulk operators, we employ a linear ansatz similar to the Hamilton-Kabat-Liftschytz-Lowe (HKLL) construction. However, unlike the HKLL construction, our protocol relies only on boundary data with no presupposed form for the bulk equations of motion, so our reconstructed bulk is fully emergent. For a (1+1)d bulk, imposing the bulk operator algebra as well as a causal structure is sufficient to determine the bulk operators and dynamics uniquely up to an unimportant local basis choice. We study the bulk construction for several two-sided SYK models with and without coupling between the two sides, and find good agreement with known results in the low-temperature conformal limit. In particular, we find bulk features consistent with the presence of a black hole horizon for the TFD state, and characterize the infalling fermion modes. We are also able to extract bulk quantities such as the curvature and bulk state correlators in terms of boundary quantities. In the presence of coupling between the two SYK models, we are able to observe evidence of the shockwave geometry and the traversable wormhole geometry using the two-sided mutual information between the reconstructed bulk operators. Our results show evidence that features of the geometric bulk can survive away from the low temperature conformal limit. Furthermore, the generality of the protocol allows it to be applied to other boundary theories with no canonical holographic bulk.

DOI
10.1007/jhep08(2024)107

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A bstract We propose a generalized protocol for constructing a dual free bulk theory from any boundary model of generalized free fields (GFFs). To construct the bulk operators, we employ a linear ansatz similar to the Hamilton-Kabat-Liftschytz-Lowe (HKLL) construction. However, unlike the HKLL construction, our protocol relies only on boundary data with no presupposed form for the bulk equations of motion, so our reconstructed bulk is fully emergent. For a (1+1)d bulk, imposing the bulk operator algebra as well as a causal structure is sufficient to determine the bulk operators and dynamics uniquely up to an unimportant local basis choice. We study the bulk construction for several two-sided SYK models with and without coupling between the two sides, and find good agreement with known results in the low-temperature conformal limit. In particular, we find bulk features consistent with the presence of a black hole horizon for the TFD state, and characterize the infalling fermion modes. We are also able to extract bulk quantities such as the curvature and bulk state correlators in terms of boundary quantities. In the presence of coupling between the two SYK models, we are able to observe evidence of the shockwave geometry and the traversable wormhole geometry using the two-sided mutual information between the reconstructed bulk operators. Our results show evidence that features of the geometric bulk can survive away from the low temperature conformal limit. Furthermore, the generality of the protocol allows it to be applied to other boundary theories with no canonical holographic bulk.
This thesis studies non-locality in quantum gravity from two directions. The first concerns detection: in AdS/CFT, the gravitational Hamiltonian is a boundary observable, and its correlator with a bulk operator can be nonzero at spacelike separation. We develop a single-copy boundary protocol that exploits this structure to detect a bulk excitation before any causal signal has reached the boundary. The protocol backreacts by inducing an uncertainty in the relative bulk-boundary time shift, and we show that this backreaction controls the tradeoff between detection speed and precision. The protocol fails when the bulk operator can be dressed to commute with the boundary Hamiltonian, a condition satisfied by black hole microstates. We introduce two novel dressed-operator constructions that interpolate between holographic accessibility and effective bulk locality: an emergent clock built from the energy level spacing, and an entanglement-based dressing to an external observer via a quantum wormhole. The second part concerns transport. We study two coupled critical transverse-field Ising chains and show that this system, which has no known geometric dual, exhibits several signatures of traversable wormhole transport: a thermofield-double-like ground state, coherent left-right transfer with a timescale controlled by the Ising CFT scaling dimension, and entanglement dynamics that track the signal.
We investigate the bulk-boundary correspondence in the SYK model from a quantum information perspective. The SYK model describes a system of Majorana fermions with random all-to-all interactions, whose disorder average-typically taken over a Gaussian ensemble-admits a dual description in terms of JT gravity in the large-NNN, low-energy limit. This framework provides a minimal setting for exploring holography and emergent spacetime in nearly AdS2_22​. We probe the holographic principle through diagnostics of quantum chaos and entanglement. In the early-time regime, the SYK model saturates the universal bound on the Lyapunov exponent, signaling maximal chaos consistent with semiclassical black hole dynamics. In the late-time regime, its spectral statistics are governed by random matrix theory, reflecting universal features of strongly chaotic quantum systems. These dynamical properties establish a concrete link between boundary quantum chaos and bulk semiclassical gravity. In parallel, we analyze quantum entanglement and the structure of operator algebras to investigate transitions in the associated von Neumann algebras and their implications for emergent geometry. To explore the robustness of these phenomena, we consider deformations of the SYK model through modified matter couplings and alternative random distributions. Our results clarify how quantum information-theoretic structures encode bulk gravitational dynamics and provide insight into the mechanism of spacetime emergence.
Bulk reconstruction is a central problem in AdS/CFT, and entanglement wedge reconstruction is its subregion version. We argue that this subregion statement should be separated from the stronger holographic quantum error correction interpretation, in which one region-independent logical bulk operator has code-preserving representatives in several boundary regions. A simple locality argument shows that such a common reconstruction must commute with the code-preserving local algebras in the complementary regions. This is the mechanism realized in HaPPY-type codes: the erased regions are blind to a protected logical algebra. An ordinary finite NNN holographic CFT does not have such a protected invisible sector for supergravity fields. Its low-energy local observables, in particular, suitably smeared stress tensors, detect the physical support and gravitational dressing of ordinary bulk operators, up to possible center or superselection data. Thus, there is no such holographic quantum error correction and the N=∞N=\inftyN=∞ agreement of global and subregion HKLL formulae is a free-theory statement. What remains is entanglement wedge reconstruction without holographic quantum error correction, or subregion complementarity: each boundary region has its own code-preserving low-energy algebra and its own region-adapted bulk interpretation, rather than a shared logical operator.
Quantum many-body systems have a rich structure in the presence of boundaries. We study the ground states of conformal field theories (CFTs) and Lifshitz field theories in the presence of a boundary through the lens of the entanglement entropy. For a family of theories in general dimensions, we relate the universal terms in the entanglement entropy of the bulk theory with the corresponding terms for the theory with a boundary. This relation imposes a condition on certain boundary central charges. For example, in 2+12+12+1 dimensions, we show that the corner-induced logarithmic terms of free CFTs and certain Lifshitz theories are simply related to those that arise when the corner touches the boundary. We test our findings on the lattice, including a numerical implementation of Neumann boundary conditions. We also propose an ansatz, the boundary extensive mutual information model, for a CFT with a boundary whose entanglement entropy is purely geometrical. This model shows the same bulk-boundary connection as Dirac fermions and certain supersymmetric CFTs that have a holographic dual. Finally, we discuss how our results can be generalized to all dimensions as well as to massive quantum field theories.
A bstract We consider a nearly-AdS 2 gravity theory on the two-sided wormhole geometry. We construct three gauge-invariant operators in NAdS 2 which move bulk matter relative to the dynamical boundaries. In a two-sided system, these operators satisfy an SL(2) algebra (up to non perturbative corrections). In a semiclassical limit, these generators act like SL(2) transformations of the boundary time, or conformal symmetries of the two sided boundary theory. These can be used to define an operator-state mapping. A particular large N and low temperature limit of the SYK model has precisely the same structure, and this construction of the exact generators also applies. We also discuss approximate, but simpler, constructions of the generators in the SYK model. These are closely related to the “size” operator and are connected to the maximal chaos behavior captured by out of time order correlators.
Entanglement entropy of holographic CFTs is expected to play a crucial role in the reconstruction of semiclassical bulk gravity. We consider the entanglement entropy of spherical regions of vacuum, which is known to contain universal contributions. After perturbing the CFT with a relevant scalar operator, also the first order change of this quantity gives a universal term which only depends on a discrete set of basic CFT parameters. We show that in gravity this statement corresponds to the uniqueness of the ghost-free graviton propagator on an AdS background geometry. While the gravitational dynamics in this context contains little information about the structure of the bulk theory, there is a discrete set of dimensionless parameters of the theory which determines the entanglement entropy. We argue that for every (not necessarily holographic) CFT, any reasonable gravity model can be used to compute this particular entanglement entropy. We elucidate how this statement is consistent with AdS/CFT and also give various generalizations. On the one hand this illustrates the remarkable usefulness of geometric concepts for understanding entanglement in general CFTs. On the other hand, it provides hints as to what entanglement data can be expected to provide enough information to distinguish, e.g., bulk theories with different higher curvature couplings.