English

Brickwall One-Loop Determinant: Spectral Statistics & Krylov Complexity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-05-23 v3 Statistical Mechanics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Chaotic Dynamics Quantum Physics

Abstract

We investigate quantum chaotic features of the brickwall model, which is obtained by introducing a stretched horizon - a Dirichlet wall placed outside the event horizon - within the BTZ geometry. This simple yet effective model has been shown to capture key properties of quantum black holes and is motivated by the stringy fuzzball proposal. We analyze the dynamics of both scalar and fermionic probe fields, deriving their normal mode spectra with Gaussian-distributed boundary conditions on the stretched horizon. By interpreting these normal modes as energy eigenvalues, we examine spectral statistics, including level spacing distributions, the spectral form factor, and Krylov state complexity as diagnostics for quantum chaos. Our results show that the brickwall model exhibits features consistent with random matrix theory across various ensembles as the standard deviation of the Gaussian distribution is varied. Specifically, we observe Wigner-Dyson distributions, a linear ramp in the spectral form factor, and a characteristic peak in Krylov complexity, all without the need for a classical interior geometry. We also demonstrate that non-vanishing spectral rigidity alone is sufficient to produce a peak in Krylov complexity, without requiring Wigner-Dyson level repulsion. Finally, we identify signatures of integrability at extreme values of the Dirichlet boundary condition parameter.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2412.12301,
  title  = {Brickwall One-Loop Determinant: Spectral Statistics & Krylov Complexity},
  author = {Hyun-Sik Jeong and Arnab Kundu and Juan F. Pedraza},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.12301},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

v3: matching the published version in JHEP

R2 v1 2026-06-28T20:37:52.586Z