arXiv subjects

Vishal Gayari

Publications and source records attributed to Vishal Gayari.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Wilson Towers as Local Bulk Fields

Multi-winding Wilson loops (``Wilson spools'') in 2+1-dimensional gravity can reproduce one-loop partition functions of local free fields in the bulk. Bulk free fields have a second-quantized Fock space, and the AdS/CFT correspondence suggests that the associated multi-particle sectors are dual to multi-trace primaries in the CFT. In this note, we use standard symmetric-function methods to show that the Wilson spool in thermal AdS$_3$ can be recast as a sum over $single$-winding Wilson loops --- one for each multi-trace primary. In a companion paper to appear, we will view Wilson networks and TQFTs as the natural language of non-perturbative bulk quantum gravity. The present note illustrates how this can apply to $local$ bulk fields, and not just defects: a bulk (generalized free) field is to be viewed as a full tower of multi-trace Wilson lines. We further show that the $SL(2)$ descendants of each multi-trace primary, together with the boundary gravitons of the AdS$_3$ background, correctly reproduce the full Virasoro character of each module. In this language, the role of a light insertion on a heavy primary is played by a topological Verlinde line. This allows us to obtain a ``microscopic" description of one-loop determinants on the smooth BTZ handlebody. A spatially wound probe Wilson line on a torus with a contractible $thermal$ cycle can be traded for a Verlinde line inserted on a dense family of heavy Polyakov loops --- with the roles of the two cycles exchanged, so that the $spatial$ cycle is now contractible. The vacuum row of the modular $S$-kernel acts as the (approximate) density of the heavy primaries. This reinforces the case made in arXiv:2601.18775 that a smooth horizon is a stand-in for an ensemble of quantum states, each produced by a heavy Wilson line that appears as a singular horizon in the semi-classical limit.

hep-th↗

arXiv2026

Holography, Brick Wall and a Little Hierarchy Problem

We propose a heuristic for the brick wall in AdS/CFT: the location where a boundary mode's local bulk energy reaches a (Planckian) UV cut-off. This accomplishes two things: (a) the brick wall is framed as a breakdown criterion for bulk effective field theory, and (b) the definition is boundary-anchored rather than horizon-anchored, aligning it with holography. Near the horizon, spacetime effectively gets cut-off due to blueshift relative to the boundary, and leads to normal modes. By directly computing these new modes for the BTZ black hole, we show that they are qualitatively unchanged from conventional 't Hooftian brick wall normal modes in the relevant part of the spectrum -- successfully reproducing black hole thermodynamics and exterior smooth-horizon correlators, under similar approximations. However, unlike 't Hooft's (and our own previous) calculations, we also do an $exact$ numerical evaluation of the normal mode partition function. This allows us to identify a "little hierarchy" problem in the brick wall paradigm, irrespective of whether it is horizon-anchored or boundary-anchored: because the modes are not exactly degenerate in the $J$-direction, the coefficient of the area law is slightly subleading, unless the brick wall is slightly trans-Planckian. One way to evade the problem is to increase the number of active species. While this is certainly a possibility in string theory, we argue that a natural resolution is to take into account the degrees of freedom intrinsic to the (stretched) horizon, as suggested by the recent results in arXiv:2601.18775. We argue that this will lead to a dominant contribution from a quantum number associated to the radial direction, while retaining the successes of the $J$-degenerate toy model. We discuss the possible significance of these observations for (a) quantum chaos in black holes, and (b) the fuzzball program.

hep-th↗