English

Bubbling wormholes and matrix models

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-05-13 v2

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 U(N)U(N) N=4\mathcal{N}=4 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 AdS5_5 ×S5\times S^5 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

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:46:57.983Z