PIRSA:15040074

Universal Dynamics and Black Hole Thermality from Conformal Field Theory

Walters, M. (2015). Universal Dynamics and Black Hole Thermality from Conformal Field Theory. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/15040074

Walters, Matthew. Universal Dynamics and Black Hole Thermality from Conformal Field Theory. Perimeter Institute, Apr. 07, 2015, https://pirsa.org/15040074 

          @misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:15040074,
            doi = {10.48660/15040074},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/15040074},
            author = {Walters, Matthew},
            keywords = {Quantum Fields and Strings, Particle Physics},
            language = {en},
            title = {Universal Dynamics and Black Hole Thermality from Conformal Field Theory},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
            year = {2015},
            month = {apr},
            note = {PIRSA:15040074 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
          }

Matthew Walters

Boston College

Talk number
PIRSA:15040074
Talk Type
Subject
Abstract

I will discuss recent work studying universal properties of gravity in anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime from the perspective of conformal field theory (CFT). After reviewing relevant aspects of the AdS/CFT correspondence, I will demonstrate that all CFTs in three or more dimensions possess a spectrum of operators consistent with long-distance locality and Newtonian gravity in AdS. In generalizing these results to two-dimensional CFTs, I will then show that operators with large scaling dimension create classical backgrounds in the limit of large central charge. This result can be directly related to eigenstate thermalization in 2d CFTs and black hole geometries in 3d AdS. I will conclude by discussing methods for going beyond this large central charge limit in 2d and for studying black holes in higher dimensions.