Sunil Kumar Sake

A bstract: The notion of time in general relativity must arise from an internal clock, i.e., a degree of freedom in the gravitational theory internal to the system that can serve the role of a physical clock. One such internal notion of time is the York time, corresponding to constant extrinsic curvature slicing of spacetime. We study the Hartle-Hawking wavefunction of asymptotically AdS ₂ JT gravity as a function of York time. Using both canonical quantization and the JT gravity path integral, we explicitly calculate this wavefunction and show that it satisfies a Schrodinger equation with respect to York time. We find the corresponding York Hamiltonian, which turns out to be manifestly Hermitian. Our analysis cleanly avoids operator ordering ambiguities. The dependence of the wavefunction on York time should be thought of as emerging from a unitary basis transformation of the gravitational length basis states used to compute the wavefunction, and not from time evolution of the state in the dual boundary theory.

A bstract: We discuss and extend some aspects pertaining to the canonical quantisation of JT gravity in de Sitter space, including the problem of time and the construction of a Hilbert space. We then extend this discussion to other two dimensional models obtained by changing the dilaton potential and show that the canonical quantisation procedure can be carried out for a large class of such models. Some discussion leading towards a path integral understanding for states, other than the Hartle Hawking state, is also included here, along with comments pertaining to Holography and the entropy of de Sitter space.

We explore a centaur geometry in Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity, which is an asymptotically anti–de Sitter (AdS) spacetime but in the IR admits a de Sitter (dS) bubble, with another AdS geometry in the deep IR. Thus, this geometry admits a holographic dual in the sense that it is asymptotically AdS. In an attempt to understand this geometry, we calculate the density of states of the putative boundary dual for such mixed geometries by evaluating the on-shell action. We compute the density of states analytically in the classical limit. The resultant density of states suggests that the degrees of freedom in the IR are reduced in such a putative boundary theory due to the IR modification corresponding to the dS bubble.

In quantum field theories that admit gravity dual, specific inequalities involving entanglement entropy between arbitrary disjoint spatial regions hold. An example is the negativity of tripartite information. Inspired by this, we investigate the analogous entropy inequalities in Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) and sparse SYK models, which involve the entanglement among different flavors of Majorana fermions rather than spatial entanglement. Sparse SYK models are models where some of the SYK couplings are set to zero. Since these models have been argued to admit gravity duals up to a certain sparseness, it is interesting to see whether the multipartite entanglement structure changes in a sparseness-dependent manner. In the parameter space explored by our numerical analysis, which we performed upto five parties, we find that all entropy inequalities are satisfied for any temperature and degree of sparseness for an arbitrary choice of flavor subregions. In addition, if we plot the multipartite entanglement entropy in terms of purity, the only significant effect of sparseness is to change the range of purity. Thus, we conclude that multipartite information is almost unaffected by sparseness. As a counterexample, we also show that in a vector model of N-flavored Majorana fermions which contains no random variables, choices of subregions exist for which the entropy inequalities are violated.

We explore a Centaur geometry in JT gravity, which is an asymptotically AdS spacetime but in the IR admits a dS bubble with another AdS geometry in the deep IR. Thus, this geometry admits a holographic dual in the sense that it is asymptotically AdS. In an attempt to understand this geometry, we calculate the density of states of the putative boundary dual for such mixed geometries by evaluating the on-shell action. We compute the density of states analytically in the classical limit. The resultant density of states suggest that the degrees of freedom in the IR are reduced in such a putative boundary theory due to the IR modification corresponding to the dS bubble.

In quantum field theories that admit gravity dual, specific inequalities involving entanglement entropy between arbitrary disjoint spatial regions hold. An example is the negativity of tripartite information. Inspired by this, we investigate the analogous entropy inequalities in Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) and sparse SYK models, which involve the entanglement among different flavors of Majorana fermions rather than spatial entanglement. Sparse SYK models are models where some of the SYK couplings are set to zero. Since these models have been argued to admit gravity duals up to a certain sparseness, it is interesting to see whether the multipartite entanglement structure changes in a sparseness-dependent manner. In the parameter space explored by our numerical analysis, which we performed upto five parties, we find that all entropy inequalities are satisfied for any temperature and degree of sparseness for an arbitrary choice of flavor subregions. In addition, if we plot the multipartite entanglement entropy in terms of purity, the only significant effect of sparseness is to change the range of purity. Thus, we conclude that multipartite information is almost unaffected by sparseness. As a counterexample, we also show that in a vector model of $N$-flavored Majorana fermions which contains no random variables, choices of subregions exist for which the entropy inequalities are violated.

We discuss the canonical quantisation of JT gravity in de Sitter space, following earlier work by Henneaux, with particular attention to the problem of time. Choosing the dilaton as the physical clock, we define a norm and operator expectation values for states and explore the classical limit. We find that requiring a conserved and finite norm and well-defined expectation values for operators imposes significant restrictions on states, as does the requirement of a classical limit. However, these requirements can all be met, with the dilaton providing a satisfactory physical clock. We construct several examples and analyse them in detail. We find that in fact an infinite number of states exist which meet the various conditions mentioned above.

We discuss the canonical quantisation of JT gravity in de Sitter space, following earlier work by Henneaux, with particular attention to the problem of time. Choosing the dilaton as the physical clock, we define a norm and operator expectation values for states and explore the classical limit. We find that requiring a conserved and finite norm and well-defined expectation values for operators imposes significant restrictions on states, as does the requirement of a classical limit. However, these requirements can all be met, with the dilaton providing a satisfactory physical clock. We construct several examples and analyse them in detail. We find that in fact an infinite number of states exist which meet the various conditions mentioned above.

We study a system of N qubits with a random Hamiltonian obtained by drawing coupling constants from Gaussian distributions in various ways. This results in a rich class of systems which include the GUE and the fixed q SYK theories. Our motivation is to understand the system at large N. In practice most of our calculations are carried out using exact diagonalisation techniques (up to N = 24). Starting with the GUE, we study the resulting behaviour as the randomness is decreased. While in general the system goes from being chaotic to being more ordered as the randomness is decreased, the changes in various properties, including the density of states, the spectral form factor, the level statistics and out-of-time-ordered correlators, reveal interesting patterns. Subject to the limitations of our analysis which is mainly numerical, we find some evidence that the behaviour changes in an abrupt manner when the number of non-zero independent terms in the Hamiltonian is exponentially large in N. We also study the opposite limit of much reduced randomness obtained in a local version of the SYK model where the number of couplings scales linearly in N, and characterise its behaviour. Our investigation suggests that a more complete theoretical analysis of this class of systems will prove quite worthwhile.