Jonathan (Yoni) BenTov

Research Interests

I want to find a quantum field theory whose low-energy limit describes a Kerr black hole.

Maldacena duality suggests that I should look for a (2+1)-dimensional strongly-interacting quantum field theory with many degrees of freedom. Kitaev's coherent-scrambling conjecture further suggests that I require the field theory's out-of-time-ordered 4-point functions to decay exponentially with exponent λ = 2πT, with the temperature T determined by eigenstate thermalization.

But before getting to quantum field theory, I had to engage the (3+1)-dimensional classical geometry. So far, I have successfully calculated the backreaction from a massless particle on the horizon of a rotating (3+1)-dimensional black hole (Kerr-Newman and Kerr-AdS)-this is the rotating generalization of the Dray-'t Hooft gravitational shockwave.

Despite the Dray-'t Hooft result being decades old, I think that its physical significance remains unclear. I would like to revisit this with a more robust formalism for nonequilibrium field theory: The Feynman-Vernon-Schwinger-Keldysh path integral. I plan to apply it to perturbation theory around the Kerr and Kerr-AdS spacetimes and see what shakes out.

Positions Held

• 2015-2018 Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125. Postdoctoral researcher.

Recent Publications

• Y. BenTov and J. Swearngin, Gravitational shockwaves on rotating black holes, Gen.Rel.Grav. 51 (2019) no. 2, 25. e-Print: arXiv: 1706.03430 [gr-qc]
• Y. BenTov, Gravitational shockwave on the Kerr-AdS horizon. e-Print: arXiv: 1904.09498 [gr-qc]