This thesis investigates important connection between two longstanding problems in theoretical physics: the information loss paradox in quantum gravity and the thermalization phenomena in quantum many-body systems.Although these problems originate from entirely different contexts, the AdS/CFT correspondence which is theoretical duality between chaotic quantum many body systems and gravity reveals that they are, in fact, two manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon.Black holes exhibit thermodynamic behavior, and semiclassical gravity predicts information loss during Hawking evaporation, apparently contradicting unitarity.In the AdS/CFT framework, however, gravitational dynamics including black hole formation is mapped to the unitary time evolution of strongly coupled quantum many-body systems.This correspondence provides a precise reformulation of Maldacena's information loss problem: the late-time behavior of thermal correlation functions predicted by semiclassical gravity fails to match the exact unitary evolution of the dual quantum system.A key ingredient in resolving this discrepancy is the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), which characterizes thermalization in chaotic manybody systems.By studying the large-deviation technique for thermal correlation functions, we give a possible way of probing ETH for single non-integrable Hamiltonian with some non-trivial assumptions.In holographic systems, ETH captures the non-perturbative physics responsible for wormhole contributions in the gravitational path integral, thereby providing a quantitative and conceptual resolution of Maldacena's version of the information loss paradox.Moreover the thesis further develops a holographic framework for open quantum systems, motivated by Hawking's original information loss problem in asymptotically flat spacetime.We are introducing non-Hermitian deformations such as imaginary Janus interfaces and brane-based constructions.We identify geometric counterparts of dissipative dynamics and measurementinduced like processes.
This thesis investigates important connection between two longstanding problems in theoretical physics: the information loss paradox in quantum gravity and the thermalization phenomena in quantum many-body systems.Although these problems originate from entirely different contexts, the AdS/CFT correspondence which is theoretical duality between chaotic quantum many body systems and gravity reveals that they are, in fact, two manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon.Black holes exhibit thermodynamic behavior, and semiclassical gravity predicts information loss during Hawking evaporation, apparently contradicting unitarity.In the AdS/CFT framework, however, gravitational dynamics including black hole formation is mapped to the unitary time evolution of strongly coupled quantum many-body systems.This correspondence provides a precise reformulation of Maldacena's information loss problem: the late-time behavior of thermal correlation functions predicted by semiclassical gravity fails to match the exact unitary evolution of the dual quantum system.A key ingredient in resolving this discrepancy is the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), which characterizes thermalization in chaotic manybody systems.By studying the large-deviation technique for thermal correlation functions, we give a possible way of probing ETH for single non-integrable Hamiltonian with some non-trivial assumptions.In holographic systems, ETH captures the non-perturbative physics responsible for wormhole contributions in the gravitational path integral, thereby providing a quantitative and conceptual resolution of Maldacena's version of the information loss paradox.Moreover the thesis further develops a holographic framework for open quantum systems, motivated by Hawking's original information loss problem in asymptotically flat spacetime.We are introducing non-Hermitian deformations such as imaginary Janus interfaces and brane-based constructions.We identify geometric counterparts of dissipative dynamics and measurementinduced like processes.
This dissertation presents a comprehensive investigation of fermionic quantum matter into the intricate relationship between quantum chaos, thermalization, and their connection to gravitational duals, with particular emphasis on the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model and its extensions. Through an integrated approach combining analytical solutions in the large-N limit with advanced numerical techniques, we explore fundamental questions in quantum many-body physics, including the interplay of chaos and ergodicity, universal transport in non-Fermi liquids, and the role of gravitational analogs in strongly correlated systems. We first demonstrate that coupled SYK lattices evade instantaneous thermalization despite weak charge fluctuations, governed by a discrete wave equation dependent solely on hopping strength, independent of on-site interactions. Thermodynamically, coupled SYK models exhibit critical exponents universal to van der Waals fluids and AdS black holes, yet diverge from the Hawking-Page transition at ultralow temperatures, revealing a continuum of first-order phase transitions. They simultaneously retain the quantum chaotic properties of both a single-dot SYK model and black holes. In extended SYK chains, we identify a universal DC conductivity bound across interaction regimes, identifying crossovers between insulating, Fermi liquid, strange metal, and bad metal phases with signatures of holographic insulator behavior. Quench dynamics in mixed SYK systems reveal rapid thermalization without prethermal plateaus, enabling direct observation of thermalization in closed quantum systems in the thermodynamic limit. To diagnose ergodicity-breaking, we introduce the Krylov variance, a probe of operator localization in Krylov space, validated through mass-deformed SYK and quantum East models. Finally, we uncover Page curve entanglement dynamics and temporal quantum phase transitions in entanglement Hamiltonians of interacting fermionic chains, where symmetry-sector crossings highlight limitations of perturbative calculations performed around initial times, such as in Hawking’s analysis of black hole evaporation. We provide a condensed matter analog of the holographic “island formula” — a mechanism invoking quantum extremal surfaces to resolve the black hole information paradox. Methodologically, this work integrates large-N-type expansions, Keldysh contour techniques, and numerical methods to bridge condensed matter physics, quantum information, and gravitational duality. The results establish SYK-type systems as a universal framework for studying non-Fermi liquids, quantum criticality, and black hole analogs, while paving the way for exploring bosonic extensions and generalizations to open quantum systems.
Via holographic duality (or ‘AdS/CFT'), the process of black hole formation and evaporation corresponds to the process of thermalization of certain (unitary) quantum field theories, evolving from non-equilibrium initial states towards thermal equilibrium. In this context, the question of how thermal a generic high-energy eigenstate looks in a theory with a holographic dual is closely tied to the question of how legitimately one may consider the dual geometry of this pure state to be a black hole. In this thesis we present some results which shed light on the nature of this relationship, through a detailed study of the dynamics of the so-called SYK model —a holographic, many-body quantum mechanical system of interacting fermions. The results indicate that this model satisfies the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, which we extend to explore its implications on certain quantum chaotic properties the SYK Hamiltonian that mirror the quantum chaotic behavior of black holes.
Why do black holes emit thermal radiation? And how does a closed quantum system thermalize? These apparently unrelated questions might be both connected to an essential feature of quantum techanics: the dynamics of quantum information and its chaotic properties. Indeed, regardless of the unitary time evolution, quantum information seems to be dissipated. The solution to these contradictions may heavily affect the near future technologies, in light of the recent progresses towards building a quantum computer. In this thesis we investigate the fascinating idea that such chaotic properties leave traces on the late time hydrodynamic excitations. We do this from two opposite directions, both from weakly coupled field theories, using a combination of field theory techniques, and from strongly-coupled field theories, using the AdS/CFT correspondence. Moreover, we studied a fermionic and bosonic quantum critical point, which are 'exotic' states of matter where quantum information plays an important role. The main results of this thesis consist of the formulation of a Boltzmann-like equation for many-body chaos, the discovery of a new property of thermal correlation functions (pole-skipping), and the analysis of which is the correct and meaningful observable to measure experimentally in order to probe quantum chaos.
This thesis explores entanglement entropy, the black hole information paradox, and applications of physics-informed deep learning, with the Anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence serving as a central framework. The first part examines entanglement islands as a possible resolution to the information paradox. Islands are surfaces in spacetime that contribute to purifying Hawking radiation in semi-classical gravity. We derive the entanglement entropy for annular entangling regions on d-dimensional AdS black hole backgrounds, and show that islands are highly sensitive to the underlying field theory modeling radiation - not only in details but in their very existence. Furthermore, we show how inhomogeneous transformations of entanglement entropy, via the replica trick, encode details about island formation, reflected in the stress tensor on both replica and base manifolds. We also introduce a framework for computing replica corrections to the thermal stress tensor, with intrinsic interest. To make contact with islands in positively curved spacetimes, we construct a multiverse model using T2-deformed dS wedge holography with dS Jackiw–Teitelboim gravity on infrared end-of-the-world branes, where finite-cutoff observers recover Page curves via islands. The second part investigates physics-informed neural networks (PINNs), which embed physical laws into the loss function. Motivated by the challenge of evaluating holographic entanglement entropy with sparse boundary data, we apply Bayesian PINNs (B-PINNs) to solve the corresponding nonlinear PDEs. The latter exemplifies high-energy theory complexities, extending PINNs beyond traditional engineering uses. We examine overconfidence in these models, attributing it to physical priors in the loss rather than miscalibration, and introduce diagnostic tools to assess this effect. Further, Hessian decomposition reveals how constraints hierarchically influence network behavior and shape the solution space, in a non-trivial way when varying with loss weight adjustments.
Chaos in many-body quantum systems is of great importance to both many-body physics as well as black hole physics. In the field of many-body physics, interactions and disorder in the system can lead to various dynamic phenomena, be it thermalisation, many-body localisation, chaotic behavior and scrambling of quantum information. In the field of high energy physics, the holographic principle connects chaos and scrambling in many-body quantum systems with the information-theoretic properties of black holes. Theoretical quantum physics provides the framework for the models, methods, and results in this thesis, while black hole physics partly provides some motivation and inspiration. First, we introduce a new model for a many-body quantum system based on random quantum circuits. These are a popular framework for theoretic study of disordered spin chains. By drawing the random unitaries in the circuit from different ensembles, we can adjust the disorder strength in the interactions, which in turn leads to a thermal/many-body localisation phase transition. Next, we study the Brownian SYK model, a disordered model of Majorana fermions with all-to-all interactions, motivated by its link to the holographic principle. We develop a new numerical method based on an effective permutational symmetry to reduce computational cost from exponential to linear or quadratic in system size N. As a consequence, we can compute scrambling quantifiers in detail, and find a log N scrambling time, as conjectured in the context of fast scrambling for black holes. Finally, we develop a model based on the continuous-time limit of a random quantum circuit. It serves as a microscopic toy model for the evaporation of a black hole. With a similar method as developed for the Brownian SYK model, we can analyse its information theoretic properties. In particular, we follow established protocols for information retrieval from the Hawking radiation. We find a separation of time scales for entanglement growth and information retrieval, related to the intrinsic black hole dynamics (∝log N) and the coupling to the environment (∝N).
This thesis studies the complexity, thermalization, and entanglement properties of quantum mechanical systems and the implications of their behavior in high energy and condensed matter models. In Chapter 2, we use the geometry of Lie groups to study the circuit complexity of quantum mechanical systems and develop the technology to analytically predict the appearance of the obstruction to the complexity growth of integrable systems. We simulate the spin and fermionic systems, in which the amount of chaos can be controlled, and conjecture the close relation between quantum complexity and thermalization. In Chapter 3, we apply quantum information theory to an evaporating black hole in Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity in the context of AdS/CFT as a quantum error correction protocol. By calculating the entropy measures using gravitational path integrals, we establish the criterion for an error in the Hawking radiation to be correctable and identify the transition in the reversibility of the error channel as the Page transition. In Chapter 4, we study a 1+1 dimensional random circuit with measurement and dissipation. We map this type of quantum system to a classical Ising model analytically and show that the entanglement dynamics can be understood as the thermodynamics of the domain wall formed in the spin model, as one of the spatial dimensions stretches. We then confirm the calculated time scales in the classical theory qualitatively with simulations of realistic qubit circuits. Overall, we present a holistic picture of quantum systems, from those evolving with pure unitary, to those evolving also with influence from the environment. The complexity of the theory and entanglement of the states exhibit universal behavior at early times (∼ O(N)) and distinct long-time behavior, determined by their thermalization properties in spin chains, toy models of black holes in AdS/CFT, and monitored random circuits with dissipation.