Pole-skipping Phenomenon Research Articles

Duality Constraints on Thermal Spectra of 3D Conformal Field Theories and 4D Quasinormal Modes

Thermal spectra of correlation functions in holographic 3D large-N conformal field theories (CFTs) correspond to quasinormal modes of classical gravity and other fields in asymptotically anti–de Sitter black hole spacetimes. Using general properties of such spectra along with constraints imposed by the S duality (or the particle-vortex duality), we derive a spectral duality relation that all such spectra must obey. Its form is universal and relates infinite products over QNMs with bulk algebraically special frequencies. In the process, we also derive a new sum rule constraining products over QNMs. The spectral duality relation, which imposes an infinite set of constraints on the QNMs, is then investigated and a number of well-known holographic examples that demonstrate its validity are examined. Our results also allow us to understand several new aspects of the pole-skipping phenomenon. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Pole-skipping for massive fields and the Stueckelberg formalism

Pole-skipping refers to the special phenomenon that the pole and the zero of a retarded two-point Green’s function coincide at certain points in momentum space. We study the pole-skipping phenomenon in holographic Green’s functions of boundary operators that are dual to massive p-form fields and the dRGT massive gravitational fields in the AdS black hole background. Pole-skipping points for these systems are computed using the near horizon method. The relation between the pole-skipping points of massive fields and their massless counterparts is revealed. In particular, as the field mass m is varied from zero to non-zero, the pole-skipping phenomenon undergoes an abrupt change with doubled pole-skipping points found in the massive case. This arises from the breaking of gauge invariance due to the mass term and the consequent appearance of more degrees of freedom. We recover the gauge invariance using the Stueckelberg formalism by introducing auxiliary dynamical fields. The extra pole-skipping points are identified to be associated with the Stueckelberg fields. We also observe that, as the mass varies, some pole-skipping points of the wave number q may move from a non-physical region with complex q to a physical region with real q.

On pole-skipping with gauge-invariant variables in holographic axion theories

We study the pole-skipping phenomenon within holographic axion theories, a common framework for studying strongly coupled systems with chemical potential (μ) and momentum relaxation (β). Considering the backreaction characterized by μ and β, we encounter coupled equations of motion for the metric, gauge, and axion field, which are classified into spin-0, spin-1, and spin-2 channels. Employing gauge-invariant variables, we systematically address these equations and explore pole-skipping points within each sector using the near-horizon method. Our analysis reveals two classes of pole-skipping points: regular and singular pole-skipping points in which the latter is identified when standard linear differential equations exhibit singularity. Notably, pole-skipping points in the lower-half plane are regular, while those elsewhere are singular. This suggests that the pole-skipping point in the spin-0 channel, associated with quantum chaos, corresponds to a singular pole-skipping point. Additionally, we observe that the pole-skipping momentum, if purely real or imaginary for μ = β = 0, retains this characteristic for μ ≠ 0 and β ≠ 0.

Chaos near to the critical point: butterfly effect and pole-skipping

We study the butterfly effect and pole-skipping phenomenon for the 1RCBH model which enjoys a critical point in its phase diagram. Using the holographic idea, we compute the butterfly velocity and interestingly find that this velocity can probe the critical behavior of this model. We calculate the dynamical exponent of this quantity near the critical point and find a perfect agreement with the value of the other quantity’s dynamical exponent near this critical point. We also find that at special points, namely the (ω⋆=iλL,k⋆=iλL/vB),\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$(\\omega _\\star = i \\lambda _L, \\, k_\\star = i\\lambda _L/v_B),$$\\end{document} where λL\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\lambda _L$$\\end{document} and vB\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$v_B$$\\end{document} are Lyapunov exponent and butterfly velocity respectively, the phenomenon of pole-skipping appears which is a sign of a multivalued retarded Green’s function. Furthermore, we observe that vB2≥cs2\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$v_B^2 \\ge c_s^2$$\\end{document} at each point of parameter space of the 1RCBH model where cs\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$c_s$$\\end{document} is the speed of sound wave propagation.

Pole-skipping points in 2D gravity and SYK model

We represent the first investigation of pole-skipping on both the gravity and field theory sides. In contrast to the higher dimensional models, there is no momentum degree of freedom in (1 + 1)−dimensional bulk theory. Thus, we then consider a scalar field mass as our degree of freedom for the pole-skipping phenomenon instead of momentum. The pole-skipping frequencies of the scalar field in 2D gravity are the same as higher dimensional cases: ω = −i2πTn for positive integers n. At each of these frequencies, there is a corresponding pole-skipping mass, so the pole-skipping points exist in (ω, m) space. We also compute the pole-skipping points of the SYK model in (ω, h) space where h is the dimension of the bilinear primary operator. We find that there is a one-to-one correspondence of the pole-skipping points between the JT gravity and the SYK model. To obtain the pole-skipping points, we need to consider the parameter ϵ related to the chemical potential on the horizon of charged JT gravity and the particle-hole asymmetric parameter mathcal{E} of the complex SYK model as shift parameters. This highlights the ϵ − mathcal{E} correspondence in relation to pole-skipping phenomenon.

Chaos and pole-skipping in a simply spinning plasma

We study the relationship between many-body quantum chaos and energy dynamics in holographic quantum field theory states dual to the simply-spinning Myers-Perry-AdS5 black hole. The enhanced symmetry of such black holes allows us to provide a thorough examination of the phenomenon of pole-skipping, that is significantly simpler than a previous analysis of quantum field theory states dual to the Kerr-AdS4 solution. In particular we give a general proof of pole-skipping in the retarded energy density Green’s function of the dual quantum field theory whenever the spatial profile of energy fluctuations satisfies the shockwave equation governing the form of the OTOC. Furthermore, in the large black hole limit we are able to obtain a simple analytic expression for the OTOC for operator configurations on Hopf circles, and demonstrate that the associated Lyapunov exponent and butterfly velocity are robustly related to the locations of a family of pole-skipping points in the energy response. Finally, we note that in contrast to previous studies, our results are valid for any value of rotation and we are able to numerically demonstrate that the dispersion relations of sound modes in the energy response explicitly pass through our pole-skipping locations.

Pole-skipping of holographic correlators: aspects of gauge symmetry and generalizations

In the framework of anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT), we study the pole-skipping phenomenon of the holographic correlators of boundary operators. We explore the locations of the pole-skipping points case by case with the U(1)-gauged form models in the asymptotic AdS bulk of finite temperature. In general, in different cases all the points are located at the Matsubara frequencies with corresponding wave vectors dispersed in the momentum space, displaying different types of patterns. Specifically, in the massless cases with U(1) symmetry, the wave vectors of the pole-skipping points have a form-number dependence, and a trans-mode equivalence in the dual fields is found in correspondence with electromagnetic duality. In the massive cases with explicit symmetry breaking, the points degenerate to be independent of the form number. We expect in such kind of pole-skipping properties implications of distinctive physics in the chaotic systems. These properties are further examined by higher-order computation, which provides a more complete pole-skipping picture. Our near-horizon computation is verified with the double-trace method especially in the example of 2-form where there is dimension-dependent boundary divergence. We illustrate in these cases that the pole-skipping properties of the holographic correlators are determined by the IR physics, consistent with the ordinary cases in previous studies.

Construction of bulk solutions for towers of pole-skipping points

The pole-skipping phenomenon has been proposed as a connection between chaotic properties of black hole geometries and special points where regular solutions of linearized Einstein equations at horizons have extra free parameters. In this work, we pursue the special points in the near-horizon analysis of integer spin-$\ensuremath{\ell}$ fields on the Rindler-AdS black hole. We construct linear combinations of field components to simplify coupled equations of massive fields and investigate towers of the special points along with imaginary Matsubara frequencies $i\ensuremath{\omega}=2\ensuremath{\pi}(n+1\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\ell})T$ with a non-negative integer $n$ and the Hawking temperature $T$. We also propose that integrals of spin-$\ensuremath{\ell}$ bulk propagators over horizons of static black holes capture behaviors at the special points, which are generalizations of integrals of graviton propagators for shock wave geometries. Their interpretation is provided in terms of four-point amplitudes with the spin-$\ensuremath{\ell}$ exchange.

Analogue of the pole-skipping phenomenon in acoustic black holes

The pole-skipping phenomenon is a special property of the retarded Green’s function of black hole perturbations. We turn to its analog in acoustic black holes, which may relate to experiments. The frequencies of these special points are located at negative integer (imaginary) Matsubara frequencies omega =-i2pi Tn, which are consistent with the imaginary frequencies of quasinormal modes (QNMs). This implies that the lower-half plane pole-skipping phenomena have the same physical meaning as the imaginary part of QNMs, which represents the dissipation of perturbation of acoustic black holes and is related to the instability time scale of perturbation.

On Some Aspects of the Holographic Pole-Skipping Phenomenon

On Some Aspects of the Holographic Pole-Skipping Phenomenon

On Some Aspects of the Holographic Pole-Skipping Phenomenon

Изучаются различные аспекты недавно открытого явления голографического пропуска полюсов. Рассматривается перескок полюсов в голографическом двойнике вращающихся черных дыр для скалярного поля и метрических возмущений. Определяются показатель Ляпунова и скорость бабочки по голографическим гравитационным точкам пропуска полюсов. Кроме того, изучается первая точка пропуска полюсов для скалярного поля на различных фонах, включая вращающиеся и заряженные черные дыры, с учетом взаимодействия с фоновым электромагнитным полем.

Pole skipping and zero temperature

We study the pole-skipping phenomenon of the scalar retarded Green's function in the rotating BTZ black hole background. In the static case, the pole-skipping points are typically located at negative imaginary Matsubara frequencies $\omega=-(2\pi T)ni$ with appropriate values of complex wave number $q$. But, in a $(1+1)$-dimensional CFT, one can introduce temperatures for left-moving and right-moving sectors independently. As a result, the pole-skipping points $\omega$ depend both on left and right temperatures in the rotating background. In the extreme limit, the pole-skipping does not occur in general. But in a special case, the pole-skipping does occur even in the extreme limit, and the pole-skipping points are given by right Matsubara frequencies.

Pole skipping and chaos in anisotropic plasma: a holographic study

Recently, a direct signature of chaos in many body system has been realized from the energy density retarded Green’s function using the phenomenon of ‘pole skipping’. Moreover, special locations in the complex frequency and momentum plane are found, known as the pole skipping points such that the retarded Green’s function can not be defined uniquely there. In this paper, we compute the correction/shift to the pole skipping points due to a spatial anisotropy in a holographic system by performing near horizon analysis of EOMs involving different bulk field perturbations, namely the scalar, the axion and the metric field. For vector and scalar modes of metric perturbations we construct the gauge invariant variable in order to obtain the master equation. Two separate cases for every bulk field EOMs is considered with the fluctuation propagating parallel and perpendicular to the direction of anisotropy. We compute the dispersion relation for momentum diffusion along the transverse direction in the shear channel and show that it passes through the first three successive pole skipping points. The pole skipping phenomenon in the sound channel is found to occur in the upper half plane such that the parameters Lyapunov exponent λL and the butterfly velocity vB are explicitly obtained thus establishing the connection with many body chaos.

Quasinormal modes in charged fluids at complex momentum

We investigate the convergence of relativistic hydrodynamics in charged fluids, within the framework of holography. On the one hand, we consider the analyticity properties of the dispersion relations of the hydrodynamic modes on the complex frequency and momentum plane and on the other hand, we perform a perturbative expansion of the dispersion relations in small momenta to a very high order. We see that the locations of the branch points extracted using the first approach are in good quantitative agreement with the radius of convergence extracted perturbatively. We see that for different values of the charge, different types of pole collisions set the radius of convergence. The latter turns out to be finite in the neutral case for all hydrodynamic modes, while it goes to zero at extremality for the shear and sound modes. Furthermore, we also establish the phenomenon of pole-skipping for the Reissner-Nordström black hole, and we find that the value of the momentum for which this phenomenon occurs need not be within the radius of convergence of hydrodynamics.

Real time dynamics from low point correlators in 2d BCFT

In this article, we demonstrate how a 3-point correlation function can capture the out-of-time-ordered features of a higher point correlation function, in the context of a conformal field theory (CFT) with a boundary, in two dimensions. Our general analyses of the analytic structures are independent of the details of the CFT and the operators, however, to demonstrate a Lyapunov growth we focus on the Virasoro identity block in large-c CFT’s. Motivated by this, we also show that the phenomenon of pole-skipping is present in a 2-point correlation function in a two-dimensional CFT with a boundary. This pole-skipping is related, by an analytic continuation, to the maximal Lyapunov exponent for maximally chaotic systems. Our results hint that, the dynamical content of higher point correlation functions, in certain cases, may be encrypted within low-point correlation functions, and analytic properties thereof.

Higher curvature corrections to pole-skipping

Recent developments have revealed a new phenomenon, i.e. the residues of the poles of the holographic retarded two point functions of generic operators vanish at certain complex values of the frequency and momentum. This so-called pole-skipping phenomenon can be determined holographically by the near horizon dynamics of the bulk equations of the corresponding fields. In particular, the pole-skipping point in the upper half plane of complex frequency has been shown to be closed related to many-body chaos, while those in the lower half plane also places universal and nontrivial constraints on the two point functions. In this paper, we study the effect of higher curvature corrections, i.e. the stringy correction and Gauss-Bonnet correction, to the (lower half plane) pole-skipping phenomenon for generic scalar, vector, and metric perturbations. We find that at the pole-skipping points, the frequencies ωn = −i2πnT are not explicitly influenced by both R2 and R4 corrections, while the momenta kn receive corresponding corrections.

The complex life of hydrodynamic modes

We study analytic properties of the dispersion relations in classical hydrody- namics by treating them as Puiseux series in complex momentum. The radii of convergence of the series are determined by the critical points of the associated complex spectral curves. For theories that admit a dual gravitational description through holography, the critical points correspond to level-crossings in the quasinormal spectrum of the dual black hole. We illustrate these methods in N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in 3+1 dimensions, in a holographic model with broken translation symmetry in 2+1 dimensions, and in con- formal field theory in 1+1 dimensions. We comment on the pole-skipping phenomenon in thermal correlation functions, and show that it is not specific to energy density correlations.

Reparametrization modes, shadow operators, and quantum chaos in higher-dimensional CFTs

We study two novel approaches to efficiently encoding universal constraints imposed by conformal symmetry, and describe applications to quantum chaos in higher dimensional CFTs. The first approach consists of a reformulation of the shadow operator formalism and kinematic space techniques. We observe that the shadow operator associated with the stress tensor (or other conserved currents) can be written as the descendant of a field ε with negative dimension. Computations of stress tensor contributions to conformal blocks can be systematically organized in terms of the “soft mode” ε, turning them into a simple diagrammatic perturbation theory at large central charge.Our second (equivalent) approach concerns a theory of reparametrization modes, generalizing previous studies in the context of the Schwarzian theory and two-dimensional CFTs. Due to the conformal anomaly in even dimensions, gauge modes of the conformal group acquire an action and are shown to exhibit the same dynamics as the soft mode ε that encodes the physics of the stress tensor shadow. We discuss the calculation of the conformal partial waves or the conformal blocks using our effective field theory. The separation of conformal blocks from shadow blocks is related to gauging of certain symmetries in our effective field theory of the soft mode.These connections explain and generalize various relations between conformal blocks, shadow operators, kinematic space, and reparametrization modes. As an application we study thermal physics in higher dimensions and argue that the theory of reparametrization modes captures the physics of quantum chaos in Rindler space. This is also supported by the observation of the pole skipping phenomenon in the conformal energy-energy two-point function on Rindler space.

Thermal diffusion and quantum chaos in neutral magnetized plasma

We calculate the thermal diffusion constant $D_T$ and butterfly velocity $v_B$ in neutral magnetized plasma using holographic magnetic brane background. We find the thermal diffusion constant satisfies Blake's bound. The constant in the bound $D_T2\pi T/v_B^2$ is a decreasing function of magnetic field. It approaches one half in the large magnetic field limit. We also find the existence of a special point defined by Lyapunov exponent and butterfly velocity on which pole-skipping phenomenon occurs.

Many-body chaos and energy dynamics in holography

Recent developments have indicated that in addition to out-of-time ordered correlation functions (OTOCs), quantum chaos also has a sharp manifestation in the thermal energy density two-point functions, at least for maximally chaotic systems. The manifestation, referred to as pole-skipping, concerns the analytic behaviour of energy density two-point functions around a special point ω = iλ, k = iλ/vB in the complex frequency and momentum plane. Here λ and vB are the Lyapunov exponent and butterfly velocity characterising quantum chaos. In this paper we provide an argument that the phenomenon of pole-skipping is universal for general finite temperature systems dual to Einstein gravity coupled to matter. In doing so we uncover a surprising universal feature of the linearised Einstein equations around a static black hole geometry. We also study analytically a holographic axion model where all of the features of our general argument as well as the pole-skipping phenomenon can be verified in detail.