arXiv subjects

Nava Gaddam

Publications and source records attributed to Nava Gaddam.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Holography of Information in a Ball of Finite Radius

The principle of holography of information states that all information available in the bulk of asymptotically flat spacetime is also available near its boundary at spatial infinity. However, physical observers never have access to spatial infinity. Therefore, we ask the question: ``Is information contained in a ball of finite radius also holographic in nature?". Phrased differently, we ask whether correlation functions on the boundary of the ball capture all the information of all correlators in the bulk of the ball. In this work, we answer this question in the affirmative within the confines of linearised quantum gravity for generic low-energy (free Klein-Gordon) states in flat space created by the action of unitaries on the vacuum to leading order in a certain perturbative parameter. For an infinite sub-class of these states, our results are perturbatively exact and valid to all orders in this same parameter. Unlike at infinity, massive and massless fields can be captured within the same framework.

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arXiv2024

Soft graviton exchange and the information paradox

We show that there is a remarkable phase in quantum gravity where gravitational scattering amplitudes mediated by virtual gravitons can be calculated explicitly in effective field theory, when the impact parameter $b$ satisfies $L_{Pl}\ll b \lesssim R_S$, with $R_S$ being the Schwarzschild radius. This phase captures collisions with energies satisfying $\sqrt{s}\gg γM_{Pl}$ (with $γ\sim M_{Pl}/M_{BH}$) near the horizon. We call this the black hole eikonal phase, in contrast to its flat space analogue where collisions are trans-Planckian. Hawking's geometric optics approximation neglects gravitational interactions near the horizon, and results in thermal occupation numbers in the Bogoliubov coefficients. We show that these interactions are mediated by graviton exchange in $2 \rightarrow 2$ scattering near the horizon, and explicitly calculate the S-matrix non-perturbatively in $M_{Pl}/M_{BH}$. This involves a re-summation of infinitely many ladder diagrams near the horizon, all mediated by virtual soft gravitons. The S-matrix turns out to be a pure phase upon this re-summation and is agnostic of Planckian physics and any specific ultraviolet completion. In contrast to the flat space eikonal limit, the black hole eikonal phase captures collisions of extremely low energy near the horizon.

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arXiv2023

Charged particle scattering near the horizon

We study Maxwell theory, in the presence of charged scalar sources, near the black hole horizon in a partial wave basis. We derive the gauge field configuration that solves Maxwell equations in the near-horizon region of a Schwarzschild black hole when sourced by a charge density of a localised charged particle. This is the electromagnetic analog of the gravitational Dray-'t Hooft shockwave near the horizon. We explicitly calculate the S-matrix associated with this shockwave in the first quantised $1\rightarrow 1$ formalism. We develop a theory for scalar QED near the horizon using which we compute the electromagnetic eikonal S-matrix from elastic $2\rightarrow 2$ scattering of charged particles exchanging soft photons in the black hole eikonal limit. The resulting ladder resummation agrees perfectly with the result from the first quantised formalism, whereas the field-theoretic formulation allows for a computation of a wider range of amplitudes. As a demonstration, we explicitly compute sub-leading corrections that arise from four-vertices.

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arXiv2023

Black hole - wormhole transitions in two dimensional string theory

We study charged black hole and wormhole solutions of Type 0A/IIA string theory in two dimensions. There is a competition between Euclidean wormholes and near extremal black holes in the thermodynamic ensemble. In a certain regime of phase space, the former can disassociate into the latter. Since such solutions are of string scale near the wormhole throat that takes an $AdS_2$ form, there is a need for an exact worldsheet description. We discuss relevant WZW coset models which we we argue will shed light on this problem. Finally, we present appropriate versions of the Type 0A/IIA matrix quantum mechanics models that are expected to describe these geometries.

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arXiv2023

All near-horizon symmetries of the Schwarzschild black hole in linearised gravity

Asymptotic symmetries are known to constrain the infrared behaviour of scattering processes in asymptotically flat spacetimes. By the same token, one expects symmetries of the black hole horizon to constrain near-horizon gravitational scattering. In this paper, we take a step towards establishing this connection. We find all near-horizon symmetries that can be potentially relevant to gravitational scattering near the horizon of the Schwarzschild black hole. We study large diffeomorphisms of linearised perturbations of the Schwarzschild black hole in a partial wave basis and in a gauge that allows for gravitational radiation crossing the event horizon. This setup is ideally suited for studying processes involving near-horizon gravitons like scattering and black hole evaporation. We find the most general near-horizon symmetries that are consistent with finite perturbations at the horizon. Since we do not impose any further boundary conditions, these symmetries represent the biggest set of symmetries in this setting. We find the associated covariant charges to be finite and non-zero showing that these symmetries are physical. Interestingly, for a large black hole, the dominant symmetries are just two copies of $ u(1)$.

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arXiv2022

A toolbox for black hole scattering

Hawking's free field theory is expected to break down after Page time. In previous work, we have shown that a primary dynamical reason for this breakdown is the dominance of graviton fluctuations of the horizon that mediate scattering processes. In this article, we present a toolbox for such `black hole scattering' computations. The toolbox comprises of explicit expressions for the graviton propagator near the horizon in an angular momentum basis for all angular momentum modes of either parity, the leading interaction rules, and most importantly a rewriting of the theory in terms of a scalar theory with an interesting four-vertex. We demonstrate how this rewriting drastically reduces the number of diagrams to be calculated in the original formulation. Finally and perhaps most remarkably, we observe that the black hole entropy appears to emerge from the multiplicity of external legs of the dominant $2\rightarrow2N$ amplitudes in this theory.

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arXiv2022

Baby Universes born from the Void

We propose a novel construction of a third quantised baby universe Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}_{BU}$ for the quantum gravity path integral. In contrast to the original description of $α$-parameters, both the bulk and boundary microscopic parameters are fixed in our proposal. Wormholes and baby universes appear due to refined observables, of the boundary dual quantum field theories, that crucially involve the space of representations of the gauge group. Irreducible representations, on which the path integral factorises, give rise to field theoretic superselection sectors and replace the $α$ states.

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arXiv2022

Modular bootstrap for D4-D2-D0 indices on compact Calabi-Yau threefolds

We investigate the modularity constraints on the generating series $h_r(\tau)$ of BPS indices counting D4-D2-D0 bound states with fixed D4-brane charge $r$ in type IIA string theory compactified on complete intersection Calabi-Yau threefolds with $b_2 = 1$. For unit D4-brane, $h_1$ transforms as a (vector-valued) modular form under the action of $SL(2,Z)$ and thus is completely determined by its polar terms. We propose an Ansatz for these terms in terms of rank 1 Donaldson-Thomas invariants, which incorporates contributions from a single D6-anti-D6 pair. Using an explicit overcomplete basis of the relevant space of weakly holomorphic modular forms (valid for any $r$), we find that for 10 of the 13 allowed threefolds, the Ansatz leads to a solution for $h_1$ with integer Fourier coefficients, thereby predicting an infinite series of DT invariants.For $r > 1$, $h_r$ is mock modular and determined by its polar part together with its shadow. Restricting to $r = 2$, we use the generating series of Hurwitz class numbers to construct a series $h^{an}_2$ with exactly the same modular anomaly as $h_2$, so that the difference $h_{2}-h^{an}_2$ is an ordinary modular form fixed by its polar terms. For lack of a satisfactory Ansatz, we leave the determination of these polar terms as an open problem.

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arXiv2022

$2 \rightarrow 2N$ scattering: Eikonalisation and the Page curve

In the spirit of studying the information paradox as a scattering problem, we pose and answer the following questions: i) What is the scattering amplitude for $N$ particles to emerge from a large black hole when two energetic particles are thrown into it? ii) How long would we have to wait to recover the information sent in? The answer to the second question has long been expected to be Page time, a quantity associated with the lifetime of the black hole. We answer the first by evaluating an infinite number of `ladder of ladders' Feynman diagrams to all orders in $M_{Pl}/M_{BH}$. Such processes can generically be calculated in effective field theory in the black hole eikonal phase where scattering energies satisfy $E M_{BH} \gg M^{2}_{Pl}$. Importantly, interactions are mediated by a fluctuating metric; a fixed geometry is insufficient to capture these effects. We find that the characteristic time spent by the particles in the scattering region (the so-called Eisenbud-Wigner time delay) is indeed Page time, confirming the long-standing expectation. This implies that the entropy of radiation continues to increase, after the particles are thrown in, until after Page time, when information begins to re-emerge.

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arXiv2022

Quantum gravity on the black hole horizon

We study scattering on the black hole horizon in a partial wave basis, with an impact parameter of the order of the Schwarzschild radius or less. This resembles the strong gravity regime where quantum gravitational effects appear. The scattering is governed by an infinite number of virtual gravitons exchanged on the horizon. Remarkably, they can all be summed non-perturbatively in $\hbar$ and $γ\sim M_{Pl}/M_{BH}$. These results generalise those obtained from studying gravitational backreaction. Unlike in the eikonal calculations in flat space, the relevant centre of mass energy of the collisions is not necessarily Planckian; instead it is easily satisfied, $s \gg γ^2 M^2_{Pl}$, for semi-classical black holes. The calculation lends further support to the scattering matrix approach to quantum black holes, and is a second-quantised generalisation of the same.

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arXiv2021

Black Hole S-matrix for a scalar field

We describe a unitary scattering process, as observed from spatial infinity, of massless scalar particles on an asymptotically flat Schwarzschild black hole background. In order to do so, we split the problem in two different regimes governing the dynamics of the scattering process. The first describes the evolution of the modes in the region away from the horizon and can be analysed in terms of the effective Regge-Wheeler potential. In the near horizon region, where the Regge-Wheeler potential becomes insignificant, the WKB geometric optics approximation of Hawking's is replaced by the near-horizon gravitational scattering matrix that captures non-perturbative soft graviton exchanges near the horizon. We perform an appropriate matching for the scattering solutions of these two dynamical problems and compute the resulting Bogoliubov relations, that combines both dynamics. This allows us to formulate an S-matrix for the scattering process that is manifestly unitary. We discuss the analogue of the (quasi)-normal modes in this setup and the emergence of gravitational echoes that follow an original burst of radiation as the excited black hole relaxes to equilibrium.

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arXiv2021

Black holes, quantum chaos, and the Riemann hypothesis

Quantum gravity is expected to gauge all global symmetries of effective theories, in the ultraviolet. Inspired by this expectation, we explore the consequences of gauging CPT as a quantum boundary condition in phase space. We find that it provides for a natural semiclassical regularisation and discretisation of the continuous spectrum of a quantum Hamiltonian related to the Dilation operator. We observe that the said spectrum is in correspondence with the zeros of the Riemann zeta and Dirichlet beta functions. Following ideas of Berry and Keating, this may help the pursuit of the Riemann hypothesis. It strengthens the proposal that this quantum Hamiltonian captures the near horizon dynamics of the scattering matrix of the Schwarzschild black hole, given the rich chaotic spectrum upon discretisation. It also explains why the spectrum appears to be erratic despite the unitarity of the scattering matrix.

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arXiv2020

The Black Hole S-Matrix from Quantum Mechanics

We revisit the old black hole S-Matrix construction and its new partial wave expansion of 't Hooft. Inspired by old ideas from non-critical string theory & $c=1$ Matrix Quantum Mechanics, we reformulate the scattering in terms of a quantum mechanical model\textemdash of waves scattering off inverted harmonic oscillator potentials\textemdash that exactly reproduces the unitary black hole S-Matrix for all spherical harmonics; each partial wave corresponds to an inverted harmonic oscillator with ground state energy that is shifted relative to the s-wave oscillator. Identifying a connection to 2d string theory allows us to show that there is an exponential degeneracy in how a given total initial energy may be distributed among many partial waves of the 4d black hole.

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arXiv2018

Antipodal correlation on the meron wormhole and a bang-crunch universe

We present a covariant euclidean wormhole solution to Einstein Yang-Mills system and study scalar perturbations analytically. The fluctuation operator has a positive definite spectrum. We compute the Euclidean Green's function, which displays maximal antipodal correlation on the smallest three sphere. Upon analytic continuation, it corresponds to the Feynman propagator on a compact bang-crunch universe. We present the connection matrix that relates past and future modes. We thoroughly discuss the physical implications of the antipodal map in both the Euclidean and Lorentzian geometries.

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arXiv2017

Illustrated study of the semi-holographic non-perturbative framework

Semi-holography has been proposed as an effective nonperturbative framework which can combine perturbative and nonperturbative effects consistently for theories like QCD. It is postulated that the strongly coupled nonperturbative sector has a holographic dual in the form of a classical gravity theory in the large N limit, and the perturbative fields determine the gravitational boundary conditions. In this work, we pursue a fundamental derivation of this framework particularly showing how perturbative physics by itself can determine the holographic dual of the infrared, and also the interactions between the perturbative and the holographic sectors. We firstly demonstrate that the interactions between the two sectors can be constrained through the existence of a conserved local energy-momentum tensor for the full system up to hard-soft coupling constants. As an illustration, we set up a bi-holographic toy theory where both the UV and IR sectors are strongly coupled and holographic with distinct classical gravity duals. In this construction, the requirement that an appropriate gluing can cure the singularities (geodetic incompletenesses) of the respective geometries leads us to determine the parameters of the IR theory and the hard-soft couplings in terms of those of the UV theory. The high energy scale behaviour of the hard-soft couplings is state-independent but their runnings turn out to be state-dependent. We discuss how our approach can be adapted to the construction of the semi-holographic framework for QCD.

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arXiv2016

Elliptic genera from multi-centers

I show how elliptic genera for various Calabi-Yau threefolds may be understood from supergravity localization using the quantization of the phase space of certain multi-center configurations. I present a simple procedure that allows for the enumeration of all multi-center configurations contributing to the polar sector of the elliptic genera\textemdash explicitly verifying this in the cases of the quintic in $\mathbb{P}^4$, the sextic in $\mathbb{WP}_{(2,1,1,1,1)}$, the octic in $\mathbb{WP}_{(4,1,1,1,1)}$ and the dectic in $\mathbb{WP}_{(5,2,1,1,1)}$. With an input of the corresponding `single-center' indices (Donaldson-Thomas invariants), the polar terms have been known to determine the elliptic genera completely. I argue that this multi-center approach to the low-lying spectrum of the elliptic genera is a stepping stone towards an understanding of the exact microscopic states that contribute to supersymmetric single center black hole entropy in $\mathcal{N}=2$ supergravity.

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arXiv2015

Rholography, Black Holes and Scherk-Schwarz

We present both the macroscopic and microscopic description of a class of near-extremal asymptotically flat black hole solutions in four (or five) dimensional gauged supergravity with R-symmetry gaugings obtained from Scherk-Schwarz reductions on a circle. The entropy of these black holes is counted holographically by the well known MSW (or D1/D5) system, with certain twisted boundary conditions labeled by a twist parameter ρ. We find that the corresponding (0,4) (or (4,4)) superconformal algebras are exactly those studied by Schwimmer and Seiberg, using a twist on the outer automorphism group. The interplay between R-symmetries, ρ-algebras and holography leads us to name our construction "Rholography".

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