Cosmological pole-skipping, shock waves and quantum chaotic dynamics of de Sitter horizons
6 affiliations
- 1Shanghai Jiao Tong University
- 2University of Edinburgh
- 3University of Ljubljana
- 4Instituto de Física Teórica UAM/CSIC
- 5Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics
- 6Pohang University of Science and Technology
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.
Related
- Noise-Induced Predictability Redistribution Across Forecast Horizons of Extreme Events in Chaotic Dynamics
- Temporal entanglement transition in chaotic quantum many-body dynamics
- Selective Quantum Mpemba Dynamics in Chaotic Spin Chains
- Nonlocal Magic Spreading in Many-body Quantum Dynamics: From Chaotic Evolution to Quasi-particle Picture in Integrable Models
- Cosmological horizons in regular bouncing backgrounds
BibTeX
@article{ahn2026cosmological,
title = {{Cosmological pole-skipping, shock waves and quantum chaotic dynamics of de Sitter horizons}},
author = {Yong jun Ahn and Sašo Grozdanov and Hyun-Sik Jeong and Juan F. Pedraza},
journal = {Journal of High Energy Physics},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1007/jhep10(2026)185},
url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/JHEP10(2026)185},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Cosmological pole-skipping, shock waves and quantum chaotic dynamics of de Sitter horizons
AU - Yong jun Ahn
AU - Sašo Grozdanov
AU - Hyun-Sik Jeong
AU - Juan F. Pedraza
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
JO - Journal of High Energy Physics
DO - 10.1007/jhep10(2026)185
UR - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/JHEP10(2026)185
AB - 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.
SN - 1029-8479
ER -