Holographic Probes of Anti-de Sitter Spacetimes

TL;DR

This paper explores how probes in anti-de Sitter spacetimes can be described using conformal field theories on the boundary, establishing a duality between bulk dynamics and boundary operators, with implications for black hole horizons.

Contribution

It introduces a formula linking bulk and boundary states and applies it to various bulk probes, enhancing understanding of the holographic correspondence.

Findings

Bulk probes correspond to boundary operator expectation values.

Radial motion in the bulk relates to scale changes on the boundary.

Implications for holographic black hole horizon descriptions.

Abstract

We describe probes of anti-de Sitter spacetimes in terms of conformal field theories on the AdS boundary. Our basic tool is a formula that relates bulk and boundary states -- classical bulk field configurations are dual to expectation values of operators on the boundary. At the quantum level we relate the operator expansions of bulk and boundary fields. Using our methods, we discuss the CFT description of local bulk probes including normalizable wavepackets, fundamental and D-strings, and D-instantons. Radial motions of probes in the bulk spacetime are related to motions in scale on the boundary, demonstrating a scale-radius duality. We discuss the implications of these results for the holographic description of black hole horizons in the boundary field theory.