Probabilistic deconstruction of a theory of gravity, part II: Curved space

Abstract

We propose that the underlying context of holographic duality and the Ryu-Takayanagi formula is that the volume measure of spacetime is a probability measure constrained by quantum dynamics. We define quantum stochastic processes using joint quantum distributions which are realized in a quantum system as expectation values of products of projectors. In anti-de Sitter JT gravity, we show that Einstein’s equations arise from the evolution of probability under the quantum stochastic process induced by the boundary, with the area of compactified space in the gravitational theory identified as a probability density evolving under the quantum process. Extrapolating these and related results in flat JT gravity found in [SciPost Phys. 15, 174 (2023)], we conjecture that general relativity arises in the semi-classical limit of the evolution of probability with respect to quantum stochastic processes.