arXiv subjects

Adam R. Brown

Publications and source records attributed to Adam R. Brown.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Falling Toward Charged Black Holes

The growth of the "size" of operators is an important diagnostic of quantum chaos. In arXiv:1802.01198 [hep-th] it was conjectured that the holographic dual of the size is proportional to the average radial component of the momentum of the particle created by the operator. Thus the growth of operators in the background of a black hole corresponds to the acceleration of the particle as it falls toward the horizon. In this note we will use the momentum-size correspondence as a tool to study scrambling in the field of a near-extremal charged black hole. The agreement with previous work provides a non-trivial test of the momentum-size relation, as well as an explanation of a paradoxical feature of scrambling previously discovered by Leichenauer [arXiv:1405.7365 [hep-th]]. Naively Leichenauer's result says that only the non-extremal entropy participates in scrambling. The same feature is also present in the SYK model. In this paper we find a quite different interpretation of Leichenauer's result which does not have to do with any decoupling of the extremal degrees of freedom. Instead it has to do with the buildup of momentum as a particle accelerates through the long throat of the Reissner-Nordstrom geometry.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

The Case of the Missing Gates: Complexity of Jackiw-Teitelboim Gravity

The Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) model arises from the dimensional reduction of charged black holes. Motivated by the holographic complexity conjecture, we calculate the late-time rate of change of action of a Wheeler-DeWitt patch in the JT theory. Surprisingly, the rate vanishes. This is puzzling because it contradicts both holographic expectations for the rate of complexification and also action calculations for charged black holes. We trace the discrepancy to an improper treatment of boundary terms when naively doing the dimensional reduction. Once the boundary term is corrected, we find exact agreement with expectations. We comment on the general lessons that this might hold for holographic complexity and beyond.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Brane tunneling and virtual brane-antibrane pairs

We survey barrier penetration by quantum tunneling for four cases: nonrelativistic point particles, scalar fields, relativistic point particles, and DBI branes. We examine two novel features that arise for DBI brane tunneling: the rate can sometimes increase as the barrier gets higher; and the instanton "wrinkles". We show that these features can be understood as the effect of the quantum sea of virtual brane-antibrane pairs. This sea exponentially augments the decay rate, with possible cosmological consequences.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Quantum Complexity and Negative Curvature

As time passes, once simple quantum states tend to become more complex. For strongly coupled k-local Hamiltonians, this growth of computational complexity has been conjectured to follow a distinctive and universal pattern. In this paper we show that the same pattern is exhibited by a much simpler system: classical geodesics on a compact two-dimensional geometry of uniform negative curvature. This striking parallel persists whether the system is allowed to evolve naturally or is perturbed from the outside.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Complexity, action, and black holes

Our earlier paper "Complexity Equals Action" conjectured that the quantum computational complexity of a holographic state is given by the classical action of a region in the bulk (the "Wheeler-DeWitt" patch). We provide calculations for the results quoted in that paper, explain how it fits into a broader (tensor) network of ideas, and elaborate on the hypothesis that black holes are the fastest computers in nature.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Complexity Equals Action

We conjecture that the quantum complexity of a holographic state is dual to the action of a certain spacetime region that we call a Wheeler-DeWitt patch. We illustrate and test the conjecture in the context of neutral, charged, and rotating black holes in AdS, as well as black holes perturbed with static shells and with shock waves. This conjecture evolved from a previous conjecture that complexity is dual to spatial volume, but appears to be a major improvement over the original. In light of our results, we discuss the hypothesis that black holes are the fastest computers in nature.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

The decay of hot KK space

The non-perturbative instabilities of hot Kaluza-Klein spacetime are investigated. In addition to the known instability of hot space (the nucleation of 4D black holes) and the known instability of KK space (the nucleation of bubbles of nothing by quantum tunneling), we find two new instabilities: the nucleation of 5D black holes, and the nucleation of bubbles of nothing by thermal fluctuation. These four instabilities are controlled by two Euclidean instantons, with each instanton doing double duty via two inequivalent analytic continuations; thermodynamic instabilities of one are shown to be related to mechanical instabilities of the other. I also construct bubbles of nothing that are formed by a hybrid process involving both thermal fluctuation and quantum tunneling. There is an exact high-temperature/low-temperature duality that relates the nucleation of black holes to the nucleation of bubbles of nothing.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Stability and Spectrum of Compactifications on Product Manifolds

We study the spectrum and perturbative stability of Freund-Rubin compactifications on $M_p \times M_{Nq}$, where $M_{Nq}$ is itself a product of $N$ $q$-dimensional Einstein manifolds. The higher-dimensional action has a cosmological term $Λ$ and a $q$-form flux, which individually wraps each element of the product; the extended dimensions $M_p$ can be anti-de Sitter, Minkowski, or de Sitter. We find the masses of every excitation around this background, as well as the conditions under which these solutions are stable. This generalizes previous work on Freund-Rubin vacua, which focused on the $N=1$ case, in which a $q$-form flux wraps a single $q$-dimensional Einstein manifold. The $N=1$ case can have a classical instability when the $q$-dimensional internal manifold is a product---one of the members of the product wants to shrink while the rest of the manifold expands. Here, we will see that individually wrapping each element of the product with a lower-form flux cures this cycle-collapse instability. The $N=1$ case can also have an instability when $Λ>0$ and $q\ge4$ to shape-mode perturbations; we find the same instability in compactifications with general $N$, and show that it even extends to cases where $Λ\le0$. On the other hand, when $q=2$ or 3, the shape modes are always stable and there is a broad class of AdS and de Sitter vacua that are perturbatively stable to all fluctuations.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Compactifying de Sitter Naturally Selects a Small Cosmological Constant

We study compactifications of $D$-dimensional de Sitter space with a $q$-form flux down to $D-Nq$ dimensions. We show that for $(N-1)(q-1)\geq 2$ there are double-exponentially or even infinitely many compact de Sitter vacua, and that their effective cosmological constants accumulate at zero. This population explosion of $Λ\ll 1$ de Sitters arises by a mechanism analogous to natural selection.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Flux Compactifications on $(S_2)^N$

We investigate a simple extra-dimensional model and its four-dimensional vacua. This model has a two-form flux and a positive cosmological constant, and the extra dimensions are compactified as the product of $N$ two-spheres. The theory is an interesting laboratory because it is at once simple enough to be soluble but rich enough to exhibit many features not present in previous model landscapes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Tensile Strength and the Mining of Black Holes

There are a number of important thought experiments that involve raising and lowering boxes full of radiation in the vicinity of black hole horizons. This paper looks at the limitations placed on these thought experiments by the null energy condition, which imposes a fundamental bound on the tensile-strength-to-weight ratio of the materials involved, makes it impossible to build a box near the horizon that is wider than a single wavelength of the Hawking quanta and puts a severe constraint on the operation of 'space elevators' near black holes. In particular, it is shown that proposals for mining black holes by lowering boxes near the horizon, collecting some Hawking radiation and dragging it out to infinity cannot proceed nearly as rapidly as has previously been claimed and that as a consequence of this limitation the boxes and all the moving parts are superfluous and black holes can be destroyed equally rapidly by threading the horizon with strings.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2012

On 'Nothing'

Nothing---the absence of spacetime---can be either an endpoint of tunneling, as in the bubble of nothing, or a starting point for tunneling, as in the quantum creation of a universe. We argue that these two tunnelings can be treated within a unified framework, and that, in both cases, nothing should be thought of as the limit of anti-de Sitter space in which the curvature length approaches zero. To study nothing, we study decays in models with perturbatively stabilized extra dimensions, which admit not just bubbles of nothing---topology-changing transitions in which the extra dimensions pinch off and a hole forms in spacetime---but also a whole family of topology-preserving transitions that nonetheless smoothly hollow out and approach the bubble of nothing in one limit. The bubble solutions that are close to this limit, bubbles of next-to- nothing, give us a controlled setting in which to understand nothing. Armed with this understanding, we are able to embed proposed mechanisms for the reverse process, tunneling from nothing to something, within the relatively secure foundation of the Coleman-De Luccia formalism and show that the Hawking-Turok instanton does not mediate the quantum creation of a universe.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Populating the Whole Landscape

Every de Sitter vacuum can transition to every other de Sitter vacuum despite any obstacle, despite intervening anti-de Sitter sinks, despite not being connected by an instanton. Eternal inflation populates the whole landscape.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Bubbles of Nothing and the Fastest Decay in the Landscape

The rate and manner of vacuum decay are calculated in an explicit flux compactification, including all thick-wall and gravitational effects. For landscapes built of many units of a single flux, the fastest decay is usually to discharge just one unit. By contrast, for landscapes built of a single unit each of many different fluxes, the fastest decay is usually to discharge all the flux at once, which destabilizes the radion and begets a bubble of nothing. By constructing the bubble of nothing as the limit in which ever more flux is removed, we gain new insight into the bubble's appearance. Finally, we describe a new instanton that mediates simultaneous flux tunneling and decompactification. Our model is the thin-brane approximation to six-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Giant Leaps and Minimal Branes in Multi-Dimensional Flux Landscapes

There is a standard story about decay in multi-dimensional flux landscapes: that from any state, the fastest decay is to take a small step, discharging one flux unit at a time; that fluxes with the same coupling constant are interchangeable; and that states with N units of a given flux have the same decay rate as those with -N. We show that this standard story is false. The fastest decay is a giant leap that discharges many different fluxes in unison; this decay is mediated by a 'minimal' brane that wraps the internal manifold and exhibits behavior not visible in the effective theory. We discuss the implications for the cosmological constant.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

The Case of the Disappearing Instanton

Instantons are tunneling solutions that connect two vacua, and under a small change in the potential, instantons sometimes disappear. We classify these disappearances as smooth (decay rate goes to 0 at disappearance) or abrupt (decay rate not equal to 0 at disappearance). Abrupt disappearances mean that a small change in the parameters can produce a drastic change in the physics, as some states become suddenly unreachable. The simplest abrupt disappearances are associated with annihilation by another Euclidean solution with higher action and one more negative mode; higher-order catastrophes can occur in cases of enhanced symmetry. We study a few simple examples, including the 6D Einstein-Maxwell theory, and give a unified account of instanton disappearances.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

Small Steps and Giant Leaps in the Landscape

For landscapes of field theory vacua, we identify an effect that can greatly enhance the decay rates to wildly distant minima--so much so that such transitions may dominate over transitions to near neighbors. We exhibit these 'giant leaps' in both a toy two-field model and, in the thin-wall approximation, amongst the four-dimensional vacua of 6D Einstein-Maxwell theory, and it is argued that they are generic to landscapes arising from flux compactifications. We discuss the implications for the cosmological constant and the stability of stringy de Sitter.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Boom and Bust Inflation: a Graceful Exit via Compact Extra Dimensions

A model of inflation is proposed in which compact extra dimensions allow a graceful exit without recourse to flat potentials or super-Planckian field values. Though bubbles of true vacuum are too sparse to uniformly reheat the Universe by colliding with each other, a compact dimension enables a single bubble to uniformly reheat by colliding with itself. This mechanism, which generates an approximately scale invariant perturbation spectrum, requires that inflation be driven by a bulk field, that vacuum decay be slow, and that the extra dimension be at least a hundred times larger than the false vacuum Hubble length.

hep-th↗