Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: A bstract We present a systematic analysis of pole-skipping for scalar, Maxwell, and gravitational waves in cosmological spacetimes. Specifically, working in empty de Sitter space and in Schwarzschild-de Sitter black hole geometries, we locate the tower of pole-skipping points of such fields and show that they impose nontrivial constraints on the corresponding bulk two-point functions. Focusing on the gravitational sound channel, we then extract the Lyapunov exponent and butterfly velocities that characterize hypothetical dual many-body quantum chaos at each horizon. These chaotic data precisely match the outcome of a gravitational shock wave calculation, confirming that the relevant pole-skipping points encode high-energy scattering of horizon quanta. Interestingly, the butterfly velocities can become superluminal or imaginary, with the latter signaling a spatially modulated propagation of chaos. Assuming that a holographic dual exists, we translate our results into field theory language and propose that the dual theory can be divided into two entangled sectors that capture the black hole and cosmological horizon degrees of freedom. Our results suggest that the black hole sector becomes increasingly nonlocal as the black hole shrinks and that the cosmological horizon sector exhibits behavior compatible with violations of Hermiticity. Finally, we outline simple microscopic toy models — built from long-range and non-Hermitian deformations of the Double Scaled Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (DSSYK)-type chains — that realize these features, providing a concrete arena for future exploration.
Source: Journal of High Energy Physics
Authors: Yong jun Ahn, Sašo Grozdanov, Hyun-Sik Jeong, Juan F. Pedraza
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Awards: The photo of a black hole: physics meets photography, G1622782223, G1734999243, G179674260, G2262748287, From quantum chaos to collective transport in plasmas, G2554159582, G282847690, G3259866395, G3452655474, G3480869486, G410571670, G425668148, G447069819, G451917667, G488842982, Mathematical physics, G5180915604, G5539308778, G5967599077, G7084143925, G7877128961, G929308097
OpenAlex ID: W4416681841