Thermal Correlators and Black Holes: From Infinity to Singularity

Abstract

This thesis explores thermal correlation functions in conformal field theories (CFTs) and their connection to black hole geometry within the AdS/CFT correspondence, using a near-boundary expansion as the main tool. Two themes are examined. First, we show that the stress-tensor sector of boundary correlators encodes information about black hole singularities. By resumming contributions from the stress-tensor and its composites, we uncover branch-point singularities in complex time, corresponding to bulk geodesics that cross the horizon, reflect off the singularity, and return to the boundary. We further clarify the role of double-trace operators in restoring analyticity and the KMS condition, and establish a map between bulk geodesics and OPE sectors of the thermal correlator. Second, we study thermal stress-tensor correlators in CFTs with pure gravity duals. Through holographic calculations in Einstein and Gauss-Bonnet gravity, we identify a robust universal behaviour - near the lightcone the correlators are described by three universal functions. The bulk Lagrangian only affects the arguments of these functions through corrections to the cubic stress-tensor couplings and the thermal stress-tensor one-point function. We relate this behaviour to causality constraints such as the averaged null energy condition (ANEC), showing that ANEC saturation makes the correlator temperature-independent. Overall, our results demonstrate that thermal correlators - especially their stress-tensor sector - serve as sensitive probes of black hole interiors, causality, and universality in holographic CFTs.