Confining Random Potential Quantum Mechanics for Jackiw-Teitelboim Gravity

Abstract

We formulate perturbative Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity as an ensemble of ordinary one-dimensional Hamiltonians with a confining random potential. The leading profile reproduces the disk density of states, while connected cumulants of a single master field encode the topological expansion. After formulating the cumulant power counting required by the topological expansion, we show that the cumulants reproduce all genus-zero multi-boundary amplitudes $\mathcal Z_{0,n}$. At higher genus, we show that a renormalization scheme can be chosen consistently order by order so that imposing one-boundary polynomiality recursively reproduces the perturbative JT string equation and yields the standard JT one-boundary amplitudes $\mathcal Z_{g,1}$. The framework provides a self-contained finite-$S_0$ quantum dynamics with a discrete spectrum and unitary real time evolution, beyond a mere rewriting of the matrix integral. The same confining dynamics also underlies late-time saturation and the dynamical avoidance of the would-be black hole singularity, as shown in our earlier work.