Johanna Erdmenger

A bstract: We investigate how a thermodynamical first-order phase transition affects the dynamical chaotic behaviour of a given model. To this effect, we analyze the model of Berkooz, Brukner, Jia and Mamroud that interpolates between the double-scaled SYK model and an integrable chord Hamiltonian. This model exhibits a first-order transition, characterized by a kink in the free energy, between the chaotic and quasi-integrable phases, with the branch of subdominant saddles interpolating between them. We characterize the dynamical behavior across the phase diagram using the chord number, Krylov complexity, and operator size. The chord number, which is proportional to the Krylov state complexity in the classical limit, exhibits a discontinuous transition from linear to quadratic growth at the transition point. Similarly, the Krylov operator complexity and the operator size, as scrambling diagnostics, exhibit discontinuous transitions from exponential to quadratic growth. We also discuss a possible holographic interpretation of the model.

A bstract: We study modular theory in hyperfinite von Neumann algebras, i.e. in those of type II or type III, from the viewpoint of a subregion charge sector decomposition. We address this symmetry resolution by considering infinite tensor products of finite-dimensional algebras with fixed subregion charge values. An important ingredient is the combination of these algebras using direct integrals. This allows us to obtain the symmetry-resolved modular operator, modular flow, and modular correlation functions for hyperfinite algebras. Our approach establishes a mathematical foundation for recent results on symmetry resolution and modular theory in conformal field theory. Our analysis applies both to charges defined on a continuous range, or on a discrete set. The latter is of interest for condensed matter theory. Moreover, within the AdS/CFT correspondence we expect our findings to be relevant as a new ingredient for bulk spacetime reconstruction, including information from different boundary charge sectors.

A bstract: As a contribution towards quantizing three-dimensional gravity, we show at the classical level that Euclidean three-dimensional Einstein gravity with a negative cosmological constant is uplifted to the SU(2)-invariant sector of Kodaira-Spencer gravity on a Calabi-Yau three-fold. Kodaira-Spencer gravity appears in the target space description of the B-model topological string theory and describes deformations of a complex structure. We prove that given a reference solution of Einstein gravity in the first-order formulation, a second off-shell configuration uplifts to a unique complex structure deformation in six dimensions. If the configuration satisfies Einstein’s equations, the complex structure deformation is integrable, i.e. a solution of Kodaira-Spencer gravity. We demonstrate the uplift explicitly for Bañados solutions. Our construction embeds three-dimensional gravity into topological string theory and AdS ₃ /CFT ₂ duality into twisted holography.

Antiferromagnetic Ising models on frustrated lattices can realize classical spin liquids, with highly degenerate ground states and, possibly, fractionalized excitations and emergent gauge fields. Motivated by the recent interest in many-body systems in negatively curved space, we study hyperbolic frustrated Ising models. Specifically, we consider nearest-neighbor Ising models on tesselations with odd-length loops in two-dimensional hyperbolic space. For finite systems with open boundaries we determine the ground-state degeneracy exactly, and we perform extensive finite-temperature Monte Carlo simulations to obtain thermodynamic data as well as correlation functions. We show that the shape of the boundary, constituting an extensive part of the system, can be used to control low-energy states: Depending on the boundary, we find ordered or disordered ground states. Our results demonstrate how geometric frustration acts in curved space to produce classical spin liquids.

A bstract: For two-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs) driven by evolving background space-time metrics in a closed universe, we present an operator formulation as a driven inhomogeneous CFT. The Hamiltonian of this theory is given by a background space-time dependent smearing of the stress tensor over the spatial slice. Emphasis is placed on the treatment of the curved-space Weyl anomaly, which we show is realized by the difference between Schrödinger and Heisenberg picture Hamiltonians once an appropriate renormalization scheme, the chirally split scheme, is chosen. As a result, the unitary evolution generated by the background metric coincides with that of a Virasoro quantum circuit. To showcase our formalism, we consider the stress tensor one-point function and the entanglement entropy of an interval in both operator and curved-space formulations. We find that these curved-space observables admit a state interpretation only in the chirally split scheme. Finally, we derive the holographic dual of the driven CFT in three-dimensional gravity, extending previous works to arbitrary driving. The holographic dictionary reproduces the stress tensor one-point function and the entanglement entropy in a diffeomorphism invariant scheme.

An important problem in many-body physics is to reconstruct the spectral density from the imaginary-time domain Green's function. Typically, the imaginary-time Green's function is generated by Monte Carlo methods. As the one-point fermionic kernel diverges exponentially for large frequencies, numerical noise generically causes instabilities. We use a convolutional neural network to obtain the spectral density for a given imaginary time Green's function. The network is trained by data which we generate using random Gaussians. We improve the training data set available by including collision centers for the Gaussians rather than employing uniformly distributed Gaussians. Our network is constructed in such a way that its output fulfills positive semidefiniteness. We compare the results of our network with results of the Maximum Entropy method (MaxEnt), a standard method for the same reconstruction problem for the spectral density. This comparison is performed for three different cases, namely our Gaussian based test data as well as two physical models, the 1d Hubbard model showing spin-charge separation, and the two-dimensional SSH model in the self-consistent Born approximation. We find that the network outperforms MaxEnt when presented data close to the training set. For the physical models considered, MaxEnt recognizes physical features more precisely as compared to our network prediction. While it is hard to improve MaxEnt, the quality of the network depends on the training data set which can be systematically enhanced and improved.

In AdS/CFT holography, two manifestations of the black hole information paradox are given by the nonisometric nature of the bulk-boundary map and by the factorisation puzzle. By considering time-shifted microstates of the eternal black hole, we demonstrate that both puzzles may be simultaneously resolved by taking into account nonlocal quantum corrections that correspond to wormholes arising from state averaging. This is achieved by showing, using a resolvent technique, that the resulting Hilbert space for an eternal black hole is finite-dimensional with a discrete energy spectrum. The latter gives rise to a transition to a type I von Neumann algebra.

Complexity is a fundamental characteristic of states within a quantum system. Its use is however mostly limited to bosonic systems, inhibiting its present applicability to supersymmetric theories. This is also relevant to its application to the AdS/CFT correspondence. To address this limitation, we extend the framework of spread complexity beyond bosonic systems to include fermionic and supercoherent states. This offers a gateway to compute spread complexity analytically for any semiclassical system governed by a Hamiltonian associated with a Lie (super)algebra. This requires extending the Krylov chain to a Krylov path in a higher-dimensional lattice. A detailed analysis of supercoherent states within the super Heisenberg-Weyl and OSp(2|1) algebras elucidates distinct contributions from bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom to the complexity. This generalisation allows us to access the semiclassical regime of the planar limit of the holographic correspondence. We then compute the spread complexity of large charge superstring states on the gravity side, which are equivalent to the dual gauge states. The resulting complexity leads to Krylov paths capturing the geometry in which the string propagates.