Crosscap contribution to late-time two-point correlators

Abstract

We show that in Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity, late-time two-point functions can get a leading non-decaying contribution from a spacetime with the topology of a Möbius strip (a disk with one crosscap). There is an interesting interplay between this contribution and the standard “plateau”. The two can add together or cancel, depending on topological weighting factors. We match this behavior to Random Matrix Theory (RMT) and the N mod 8 periodicity of Sachdev-Kitaev-Ye (SYK) results.