We show that the free energy at low temperatures for near-extremal black holes is correctly obtained from the Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) model of gravity. Our arguments apply to all black holes, including rotating ones, whose metric has a near-horizon AdS 2 factor and the associated SL(2, R) symmetry. We verify these arguments by explicit calculations for rotating black holes in 4 and 5 dimensions. Our results suggest that the JT model could prove useful in analysing the dynamics of near-extremal Kerr black holes found in nature.

We analyse the Jackiw-Teitelboim model of 2D gravity coupled to N massless free scalar fields in the semi-classical limit. Two systems are studied which essentially differ in the boundary conditions that are imposed. We find that the thermodynamics has interesting differences. We also analyse the response to additional infalling matter which satisfies the null energy condition. The second law is shown to be valid in both systems for the generalised entropy which takes into account the entanglement across the event horizon due to the matter fields. Similarly we find that the generalised entropy increases along future Q-screens in both systems.

We formulate the path integral for Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity in the second order formalism working directly with the metric and the dilaton. We consider the theory both in Anti-de Sitter(AdS) and de Sitter space(dS) and analyze the path integral for the disk topology and the “double trumpet” topology with two boundaries. We also consider its behavior in the presence of conformal matter. In the dS case the path integral evaluates the wavefunction of the universe which arises in the no-boundary proposal. In the asymptotic AdS or dS limit without matter we get agreement with the first order formalism. More generally, away from this limit, the path integral is more complicated due to the presence of modes from the gravity- dilaton sector and also matter sector with short wavelengths along the boundary that are smaller than the AdS or dS scales. In the double trumpet case, for both AdS and dS, we find that bosonic matter gives rise to a diverging contribution in the moduli space integral rendering the path integral ill-defined. The divergence occurs when the size of the wormhole neck vanishes and is related to the Casimir effect. For fermions this divergence can be avoided by imposing suitable boundary conditions. In this case, in dS space the resulting path integral gives a finite contribution for two disconnected universes to be produced by quantum tunneling.

We discuss JT gravity in AdS and dS space in the second order formalism. For the pure dS JT theory without matter, we show that the path integral gives rise in general to the Hartle-Hawking wave function which describes an arbitrary number of disconnected universes produced by tunnelling “from nothing”, or to transition amplitudes which describe the tunnelling of an initial state consisting of several contracting universes to a final state of several expanding universes. These processes can be described by a hologram consisting of Random Matrix Theory (RMT) or, we suggest, after some modification on the gravity side, by a hologram with the RMT being replaced by SYK theory. In the presence of matter, we discuss the double trumpet path integral and argue that with suitable twisted boundary conditions, a divergence in the moduli space integral can be avoided and the system can tunnel from a contracting phase to an expanding one avoiding a potential big bang/big crunch singularity. The resulting spectrum of quantum perturbations which are produced can exhibit interesting departures from scale invariance. We also show that the divergence in moduli space can be avoided for suitable correlators which involve different boundaries in the AdS/dS cases, and suggest that a hologram consisting of the SYK theory with additional matter could get rid of these divergences in general. Finally, we analyse the AdS double trumpet geometry and show that going to the micro-canonical ensemble instead of the canonical one, for the spectral form factor, does not get rid of the divergence in moduli space.

We analyse near-extremal black brane configurations in asymptotically AdS4 spacetime with the temperature T, chemical potential μ, and three-velocity uν, varying slowly. We consider a low-temperature limit where the rate of variation is much slower than μ, but much bigger than T. This limit is different from the one considered for conventional fluid-mechanics in which the rate of variation is much smaller than both T, μ. We find that in our limit, as well, the Einstein-Maxwell equations can be solved in a systematic perturbative expansion. At first order, in the rate of variation, the resulting constitutive relations for the stress tensor and charge current are local in the boundary theory and can be easily calculated. At higher orders, we show that these relations become non-local in time but the perturbative expansion is still valid. We find that there are four linearised modes in this limit; these are similar to the hydrodynamic modes found in conventional fluid mechanics with the same dispersion relations. We also study some linearised time independent perturbations exhibiting attractor behaviour at the horizon — these arise in the presence of external driving forces in the boundary theory.