Bubbling wormholes and matrix models
Abstract
The thermofield double state entangles two copies of a CFT via a sum over energy eigenstates and is dual to the two-sided eternal black hole. We explore an analogous construction using sums over gauge group representations of half-BPS Wilson loops in multiple copies of super Yang-Mills. These sums act as delta function-like operators that correlate the eigenvalues of the corresponding half-BPS matrix models. We suggest that the holographic duals are ''bubbling wormhole'' geometries: multi-covers of AdS whose conformal boundary consists of multiple four-spheres intersecting on a common circle. We analyze the matrix model free energy, discuss its bulk interpretation, and study probe loops in these backgrounds.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.24891,
title = {Bubbling wormholes and matrix models},
author = {Panos Betzios and Ji Hoon Lee and Olga Papadoulaki and Yanjun Zhou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.24891},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
36 pages + 1 appendix, improved discussion