3D gravity as an average large-c CFT Geometry and Physics Seminar

Abstract

Euclidean wormholes have played an important role in recent progress on 2D gravity and on black hole information in higher dimensions. However, these spacetimes can also lead to puzzling results that seem to disagree with quantum mechanics and the AdS/CFT correspondence, which has led to the suggestion that wormholes arise from coarse-graining over UV degrees of freedom. I will explain the puzzle and show that Euclidean wormholes and other higher topology spacetimes in 3D gravity can be interpreted as averaged solutions of the 2D conformal bootstrap equations.