Massive fields and Wilson spools in JT gravity
Abstract
We give a prescription for minimally coupling massive matter to JT gravity with either sign of cosmological constant directly in its formulation as a topological BF theory. This coupling takes the form of a `Wilson spool,' originally introduced in the context of three-dimensional gravity. The Wilson spool expresses the exact one-loop partition function as the integral over a Wilson loop operator. We construct the spool by considering the partition function of a massive scalar field on Euclidean dS and on Euclidean AdS. We discuss its extension to other geometries (including the `trumpet' and conical defect geometries) and its relation to the three-dimensional spool through dimensional reduction.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.08657,
title = {Massive fields and Wilson spools in JT gravity},
author = {Jackson R. Fliss},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.08657},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
25 pages + appendices; one sphere, one disc, one trumpet, one cone, one football