Daniel Harlow

Analytic continuation of Liouville theory

A bstractCorrelation functions in Liouville theory are meromorphic functions of the Liouville momenta, as is shown explicitly by the DOZZ formula for the three-point function on S2. In a certain physical region, where a real classical solution exists, the semiclassical limit of the DOZZ formula is known to agree with what one would expect from the action of the classical solution. In this paper, we ask what happens outside of this physical region. Perhaps surprisingly we find that, while in some range of the Liouville momenta the semiclassical limit is associated to complex saddle points, in general Liouville’s equations do not have enough complex-valued solutions to account for the semiclassical behavior. For a full picture, we either must include “solutions” of Liouville’s equations in which the Liouville field is multivalued (as well as being complex-valued), or else we can reformulate Liouville theory as a Chern-Simons theory in three dimensions, in which the requisite solutions exist in a more conventional sense. We also study the case of “timelike” Liouville theory, where we show that a proposal of Al. B. Zamolodchikov for the exact three-point function on S2 can be computed by the original Liouville path integral evaluated on a new integration cycle.

Reconstruction of Bulk Operators within the Entanglement Wedge in Gauge-Gravity Duality

In this Letter we prove a simple theorem in quantum information theory, which implies that bulk operators in the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence can be reconstructed as CFT operators in a spatial subregion A, provided that they lie in its entanglement wedge. This is an improvement on existing reconstruction methods, which have at most succeeded in the smaller causal wedge. The proof is a combination of the recent work of Jafferis, Lewkowycz, Maldacena, and Suh on the quantum relative entropy of a CFT subregion with earlier ideas interpreting the correspondence as a quantum error correcting code.

Inflation after false vacuum decay: Observational prospects after Planck

We assess two potential signals of the formation of our universe by the decay of a false vacuum. Negative spatial curvature is one possibility, but the window for its detection is now small. However, another possible signal is a suppression of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum at large angles. This arises from the steepening of the effective potential as it interpolates between a flat inflationary plateau and the high barrier separating us from our parent vacuum. We demonstrate that these two effects can be parametrically separated in angular scale. Observationally, the steepening effect appears to be excluded at large

Wave function of Vasiliev’s universe: A few slices thereof

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Tree-like structure of eternal inflation: A solvable model

; but it remains consistent with the slight lack of power below

Analytic Coleman-De Luccia Geometries

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Operator Dictionaries and Wave Functions in AdS/CFT and dS/CFT

found by the WMAP and Planck collaborations. We give two simple models which improve the fit to the Planck data; one with observable curvature and one without. Despite cosmic variance, we argue that future CMB polarization and most importantly large-scale structure observations should be able to corroborate the Planck anomaly if it is real. If we further assume the specific theoretical setting of a landscape of metastable vacua, as suggested by string theory, we can estimate the probability of seeing a low-

Crunches, Hats, and a Conjecture

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Metastability in Anti de Sitter Space

suppression in the CMB. There are significant theoretical uncertainties in such calculations, but we argue the probability for a detectable suppression may be as large as

Complementarity, not Firewalls

O(1)