Firewalls at exponentially late times

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how wormholes in JT gravity at late times can lead to firewalls, especially in states with perturbations, by resumming wormhole expansions and studying interior slice distributions.

Contribution

It introduces a late-time double scaling limit in JT gravity to exactly analyze wormhole effects on interior states and firewall formation.

Findings

Wormholes tend to teleport particles, increasing interior danger at late times.

The probability of a safe interior becomes exponentially small with many perturbations.

Even in safe states, the chance of a firewall is about fifty percent with perturbations.

Abstract

We consider a version of the typical state firewall setup recently reintroduced by Stanford and Yang, who found that wormholes may create firewalls. We examine a late-time double scaling limit in JT gravity in which one can resum the expansion in the number of wormholes, and we use this to study the exact distribution of interior slices at times exponential in the entropy. We consider a thermofield double with and without early perturbations on a boundary. These perturbations can appear on interior slices as dangerous high energy shocks. For exponentially late times, wormholes tend to teleport the particles created by perturbations and render the interior more dangerous. In states with many perturbations separated by large times, the probability of a safe interior is exponentially small. Such states thus almost certainly have firewalls at the horizon, even though they would be safe without wormholes. With perturbation, even in the safest state we conceive, the odds of encountering a firewall are fifty-fifty. One interpretation of the phenomena found here is that wormholes can change time-ordered contours into effective out-of-time-ordered folds, making shockwaves appear in unexpected places.