Slow complexification

Abstract

The fact that AdS black hole interior geometries are time-dependent presents two challenges: first, to holographic duality (the boundary matter tends to equilibrate, often very quickly), and, second, to the idea that wormholes can be traversable (the wormhole geometry is dynamic, and the wormhole is apt to collapse too quickly for traversal to be possible). As is well known, the first puzzle can be addressed by considering the quantum circuit complexity of the strongly coupled boundary matter, which can continue to grow long after equilibrium is established. We show that data from a phenomenological model of the Quark-Gluon Plasma indicate the existence of an upper bound on the rate of increase of the (specific) complexity, in agreement with a simple holographic model. We then point out that, in this model, this upper bound becomes stricter if angular momentum is added to the bulk black hole while fixing the temperature (at any value, so the black hole is not near-extremal). We show that the dual phenomenon, a dramatic slowing of the black hole interior dynamics at high specific angular momentum, also occurs. We conjecture that sufficiently slow complexification of the field theories dual to rotating black holes is associated with traversability of the bulk wormhole, when quantum effects are taken into account.