Islands and traversable wormholes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how traversable wormholes in AdS$_2$ gravity can facilitate information recovery from black holes, showing a decrease in generalized entropy consistent with the Page curve and exploring boundary correlators as probes.

Contribution

It introduces a simple non-local interaction to make wormholes traversable in AdS$_2$ gravity and analyzes the resulting effects on entropy and boundary correlators.

Findings

Negative-energy shocks render wormholes traversable.

Generalized entropy decreases, matching the flat Page curve.

Boundary two-point functions serve as microscopic probes.

Abstract

We study information recovery in black hole evaporation using traversable wormhole protocols in AdS$_2$ Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity with matter fields coupled to an external bath. By introducing a simple non-local interaction between left and right radiation regions, we generate negative-energy shockwaves that render the wormhole traversable. We compute the resulting shifts in Kruskal coordinates, changes in the stress tensor, and backreaction effects on quantum extremal surfaces, finding a consistent decrease of the generalized entropy that aligns with the flat Page curve. Finally, we analyze the impact of negative-energy shocks on boundary two-point functions, providing a microscopic probe of island/radiation duality and discussing possible implications for experimental realizations in analog quantum-mechanical models.