Inspired by thermodynamic properties of black holes, the holographic principle states that quantum gravity in a certain spacetime can be equivalently described by a theory without gravity living at the boundary of spacetime. Like a hologram, the boundary theory encodes all information about the higher-dimensional gravitational bulk theory. But how exactly is information about what is happening locally in the bulk encoded in the boundary theory?

A recent insight is that spacetime connectedness and the laws of gravity are intimately related to quantum entanglement of underlying degrees of freedom. This has led to the introduction of new quantum information theoretic quantities, including “entwinement”, designed to probe the bulk spacetime in as much detail as possible. Also, it has been realized that the encoding of bulk physics in the boundary theory can be naturally interpreted in the language of quantum error correcting codes, which has led to new tensor network toy models for holography. Finally, the quantum chaos that underlies the thermal behavior of black holes has been identified.

My proposed PhD research addresses a number of interrelated questions: Does entwinement capture the expected bulk physics in examples beyond those that have been studied so far? What can tensor network models teach us about entwinement? Can we get a better handle on chaos in string theory black holes? And can we introduce dynamics in holographic quantum error correcting codes?

    Flemish discipline codes

  • Classical physics not elsewhere classified

    Research areas

  • string theory, black holes

ID: 34677514