Informal High Energy Theory Seminar

We reduce the dynamics of a nearly-$AdS_2$ spacetime to that of two particles in $AdS_2$. We determine the class of physically meaningful wavefunctions, normalize them, and find the density of states. These can be derived from analytically continuing Euclidean solutions. In Lorentzian signature, the density of states appears in the probability for a particle to tunnel between the asymptotic regions. This tunneling is described by a flux operator, which appears in the decomposition of two-particle functions into single-particle functions. The density of states can also be obtained by normalizing wavefunctions in the classically forbidden region, which we relate to a certain property of SYK microstates. Based on upcoming work with A. Kitaev.