School of Natural Sciences

We argue that Euclidean wormhole configurations in AdS/CFT--central to the factorization problem--originate from the erratic $N$-dependence that arises in the large-$N$ limit of conformal field theories (CFTs). We propose that constructing the...

It was argued that any fixed holographic theory contains only one closed universe state and hence fails to give semi-classical physics. It was proposed that this problem can be resolved by including a classical observer living inside the universe...

Part 2 of the talk by Pratik Rath. In this talk, I will discuss a puzzle in JT (super)gravity coupled to matter, first observed by Lin-Maldacena-Rozenberg-Shan. The one-sided entropy of a two-sided black hole in the presence of many matter operator...

Part 1: In this talk, I will discuss an entropic puzzle in JT gravity and its resolution, which requires taking into account non-perturbative effects in the gravitational path integral. In JT gravity, which is dual to a random matrix ensemble, the...

Classical random walks have long served as useful intuition for the dynamics of light scalar fields in de Sitter space. This description can be shown to arise from QFT on a fixed dS background, via RG flow. The RG approach also permits corrections...

Do typical black hole microstates have semiclassical interiors? I will present a constructive approach to this question, where we prepare ensembles of black hole interiors with long wormholes using Brownian matter sources. Evaluating the frame...

The path integral of pure 3D gravity is formulated on a finite region of spacetime, with boundary conditions that fix dihedral angles or geodesic lengths. This amplitude calculates statistics of black hole matrix elements in the dual CFT. The fixed...

It has recently been understood from several points of view that the Hilbert space of quantum gravity in a closed universe has dimension one.  It has also been argued that this problem can be ameliorated by explicitly including the observer in the...

Supermassive black hole mergers are extraordinary cosmic phenomena characterized by their immense energy release, producing gravitational waves that can rival the total light output of all stars in the universe within a short time frame. These...