A Third-Quantized Description of Spacetime Wormholes in AdS/CFT
Abstract
We propose an extension of AdS/CFT in which quantum gravitational wavefunctions of connected bulk geometries are assembled into a Fock space of universes. Splitting and joining interactions in a third-quantized Hamiltonian then provide a quantum description of changes in bulk connectivity and topology. Reduced phase-space quantization supplies the physical one-universe Hilbert space and a radial Schrödinger evolution with respect to which the topology-changing interactions are ordered. We develop the construction concretely in AdS3 gravity with a torus boundary, where these ingredients can be described explicitly. The light spectrum is treated as fixed, non-normalizable background data, whereas the normalizable states above the black-hole threshold are quantized as dynamical modes. A conventional boundary theory is selected by choosing a coherent state whose universe-field expectation value, together with the fixed background contribution, yields consistent CFT data at the asymptotic boundary. Generic one-universe wavefunctions need not admit such an interpretation. This raises the possibility that CFT-realizable wavefunctions are nongeneric in the gravitational state space and are not closed under arbitrary superpositions of gravitational states. The known two-torus spacetime-wormhole amplitude, which lies at the heart of the factorization problem, provides concrete input for the topology-changing interactions of the third-quantized theory. A complementary cutting-and-gluing description yields an effective ensemble interpretation when the resulting gravitational sectors admit consistent boundary-theory interpretations, without assuming a fundamental ensemble of boundary theories. We also discuss replica wormholes and baby-universe processes within the same framework.
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BibTeX
@misc{hirano2026thirdquantized,
title = {{A Third-Quantized Description of Spacetime Wormholes in AdS/CFT}},
author = {Shinji Hirano},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.23111},
eprint = {2608.23111},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.23111},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Third-Quantized Description of Spacetime Wormholes in AdS/CFT
AU - Shinji Hirano
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/30
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.23111
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.23111
AB - We propose an extension of AdS/CFT in which quantum gravitational wavefunctions of connected bulk geometries are assembled into a Fock space of universes. Splitting and joining interactions in a third-quantized Hamiltonian then provide a quantum description of changes in bulk connectivity and topology. Reduced phase-space quantization supplies the physical one-universe Hilbert space and a radial Schrödinger evolution with respect to which the topology-changing interactions are ordered. We develop the construction concretely in AdS_3 gravity with a torus boundary, where these ingredients can be described explicitly. The light spectrum is treated as fixed, non-normalizable background data, whereas the normalizable states above the black-hole threshold are quantized as dynamical modes. A conventional boundary theory is selected by choosing a coherent state whose universe-field expectation value, together with the fixed background contribution, yields consistent CFT data at the asymptotic boundary. Generic one-universe wavefunctions need not admit such an interpretation. This raises the possibility that CFT-realizable wavefunctions are nongeneric in the gravitational state space and are not closed under arbitrary superpositions of gravitational states. The known two-torus spacetime-wormhole amplitude, which lies at the heart of the factorization problem, provides concrete input for the topology-changing interactions of the third-quantized theory. A complementary cutting-and-gluing description yields an effective ensemble interpretation when the resulting gravitational sectors admit consistent boundary-theory interpretations, without assuming a fundamental ensemble of boundary theories. We also discuss replica wormholes and baby-universe processes within the same framework.
ER -