From black holes to baby universes in CGHS gravity

Abstract

Abstract We study CGHS ̂ $$ \hat{\mathrm{CGHS}} $$ gravity, a variant of the matterless Callan-Giddings-Harvey-Strominger model. We show that it describes a universal sector of the near horizon perturbations of non-extremal black holes in higher dimensions. In many respects this theory can be viewed as a flat space analog of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. The result for the Euclidean path integral implies that CGHS ̂ $$ \hat{\mathrm{CGHS}} $$ is dual to a Gaussian ensemble that we describe in detail. The simplicity of this theory allows us to compute exact quantities such as the quenched free energy and provides a useful playground to study baby universes, averages and factorization. In particular we derive a “wormhole = diagonal” identity. We also give evidence for the existence of a non-perturbative completion in terms of a matrix model. Finally, flat wormhole solutions in this model are discussed.

Keywords

• 2D Gravity
• Black Holes
• Models of Quantum Gravity
• AdS-CFT Correspondence