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arxiv: 2605.05011 · v1 · submitted 2026-05-06 · ✦ hep-th · gr-qc

Kerr/CFT Traversable Wormhole with Fermionic Double-Trace Deformation

Pith reviewed 2026-05-08 16:41 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification ✦ hep-th gr-qc
keywords traversable wormholedouble-trace deformationKerr/CFT correspondencefermionic fieldsnegative energy conditionnear-extremal Kerr black holewormhole echoessuperradiance
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The pith

Fermionic double-trace deformations open traversable wormholes in near-extremal Kerr black holes by generating negative energy through left-right boundary couplings.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

This paper shows that double-trace deformations using fermion fields can create traversable wormholes in the Kerr black hole spacetime, within the Kerr/CFT correspondence. Unlike bosonic cases, fermions avoid superradiant instabilities, allowing the wormhole to be described across all regions including off-axis areas. The coupling between left and right boundaries modifies the two-point function to generate the necessary negative energy, with traversability maximized at early perturbation times and depending on frequency, temperature, and mass. This advances the understanding of quantum gravity effects in rotating black holes and potential information transfer through wormholes.

Core claim

In the near-horizon near-extremal Kerr geometry, dual to a CFT via Kerr/CFT, introducing a fermionic double-trace deformation with appropriate left-right coupling modifies the two-point function. The resulting first-order correction to the stress-energy tensor supplies negative average null energy sufficient to open a traversable wormhole. This opening is maximized when the deformation is turned on at early times and depends on the fermion mode frequency, the temperature, and the mass; at late times the energy damps with oscillations to zero. Lower temperatures reduce traversability to closure at extremality, while near-extremal rotation raises the information transfer bound to the entropy,

What carries the argument

The left-right fermionic double-trace deformation operator, which generates a first-order correction to the boundary two-point function that contributes negative energy.

If this is right

  • Wormhole traversability peaks for perturbations applied at early times.
  • The average null energy exhibits damped oscillations at late times before reaching zero.
  • Black holes with lower temperatures exhibit reduced traversability, becoming closed in the extremal limit.
  • Near-extremal rotation increases the upper bound on information transfer to the order of the black hole entropy.
  • Symmetrical effective potential bumps linked by the wormhole produce echoes whose time delay cannot exceed the scrambling time.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • This fermionic approach could be applied to other axisymmetric spacetimes where bosonic superradiance prevents wormhole constructions.
  • The mass dependence of the opening suggests that varying the fermion mass provides a control parameter for wormhole size in holographic models.
  • Observable gravitational wave echoes might arise in astrophysical Kerr-like objects if such deformations are realized.
  • The connection to CFT two-point functions implies that wormhole traversability is directly tied to specific correlation patterns in the dual theory.

Load-bearing premise

The perturbative first-order correction from the double-trace deformation supplies the necessary negative energy without triggering higher-order instabilities, assuming the Kerr/CFT duality accurately describes the near-horizon near-extremal region.

What would settle it

A direct computation or simulation of the average null energy along a null geodesic threading the wormhole throat showing it to be negative when the deformation is activated early, with the sign flip vanishing at late times or in the extremal limit.

read the original abstract

The construction of a traversable wormhole with double-trace deformation has been achieved so far by using boson fields as the perturbation. In this work, we study double-trace deformation with fermion fields in the two-sided Kerr background to open a traversable wormhole. We construct the fermionic double-trace deformation within the Kerr/CFT framework. We consider the near-horizon, near-extremal Kerr geometry, which is dual to a conformal field theory. The lack of fermionic superradiance let us describe the wormhole at every region, even at the off-axis region where bosonic field experiences instability due to superradiance. By choosing a certain coupling between the left and right boundaries, the two-point function is modified, and its first order correction contributes the negative energy to open the wormhole. The wormhole is most traversable when the perturbation is turned on at early times, with opening that depends on the mode's frequency, the black hole temperature, and the fermion mass. At late times, the average null energy has damped oscillation behavior until eventually reaches zero. Wormhole with lower temperature have less traversability and it is completely closed at extreme limit. On the other hand, rotation near extreme limit can increases the upper bound on information transfer up to the order of the entropy. Additionally, symmetrical effective potential bumps connected by the wormhole can produce observable echoes. We find that the echo time delay cannot exceed the scrambling time of the black hole.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

2 major / 1 minor

Summary. The paper constructs a traversable wormhole in the two-sided near-horizon near-extremal Kerr geometry via fermionic double-trace deformation in the Kerr/CFT framework. A boundary coupling between left and right sides modifies the two-point function such that its first-order correction supplies negative average null energy sufficient to open the wormhole. Traversability is maximized for early-time perturbations and depends on mode frequency, temperature, and fermion mass; late-time behavior shows damped oscillations to zero energy. Lower temperatures reduce traversability (closed at extremality), while near-extremal rotation raises the information-transfer bound to order of the entropy. Symmetrical effective-potential bumps yield echoes whose time delay is bounded by the black-hole scrambling time.

Significance. If the first-order perturbative calculation is valid, the work supplies a fermionic counterpart to existing bosonic double-trace wormhole constructions, exploiting the absence of fermionic superradiance to permit a consistent description even in off-axis regions where bosonic fields are unstable. This yields concrete predictions for temperature and rotation dependence of traversability, an entropy-scale bound on information transfer, and an echo delay strictly less than the scrambling time, all within the conjectural Kerr/CFT dictionary.

major comments (2)
  1. [Abstract and the section deriving the negative-energy contribution] The central claim that the first-order correction to the two-point function produces negative average null energy (Abstract) rests on the unverified assumption that the double-trace deformation remains perturbative and that its sign and magnitude survive the near-horizon, near-extremal limit. No explicit bound on the coupling strength or check against second-order backreaction is supplied, rendering the energy contribution load-bearing yet unconfirmed.
  2. [The section on time-dependent traversability and late-time behavior] The assertion that the wormhole is most traversable for early-time perturbations, with late-time damped oscillations (Abstract), depends on the time-dependent two-point function correction. Without the explicit integral expression or mode-sum formula for the average null energy, the claimed dependence on frequency, temperature, and fermion mass cannot be independently verified.
minor comments (1)
  1. [Abstract] The abstract states that 'symmetrical effective potential bumps connected by the wormhole can produce observable echoes' without indicating how these bumps arise from the fermionic deformation or the Kerr geometry; a short clarifying sentence would improve accessibility.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

2 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the careful reading and constructive comments on our manuscript. We address each major comment below and will incorporate the suggested clarifications in the revised version.

read point-by-point responses
  1. Referee: [Abstract and the section deriving the negative-energy contribution] The central claim that the first-order correction to the two-point function produces negative average null energy (Abstract) rests on the unverified assumption that the double-trace deformation remains perturbative and that its sign and magnitude survive the near-horizon, near-extremal limit. No explicit bound on the coupling strength or check against second-order backreaction is supplied, rendering the energy contribution load-bearing yet unconfirmed.

    Authors: We agree that the perturbative validity of the double-trace deformation is central to the result. The manuscript introduces the deformation with a small coupling constant chosen so that the first-order correction to the two-point function yields negative average null energy; the sign is fixed by the left-right boundary coupling. The near-horizon, near-extremal limit is applied consistently with the Kerr/CFT dictionary after the deformation. To address the concern, we will add a dedicated paragraph in the revised manuscript that (i) states the regime λ ≪ 1 in which higher-order terms in the coupling are negligible and (ii) provides a rough estimate showing that second-order backreaction is suppressed by an extra factor of λ times the near-extremal parameter. This makes the range of validity explicit while leaving the leading-order conclusions unchanged. revision: yes

  2. Referee: [The section on time-dependent traversability and late-time behavior] The assertion that the wormhole is most traversable for early-time perturbations, with late-time damped oscillations (Abstract), depends on the time-dependent two-point function correction. Without the explicit integral expression or mode-sum formula for the average null energy, the claimed dependence on frequency, temperature, and fermion mass cannot be independently verified.

    Authors: The time-dependent correction to the two-point function is obtained from the mode expansion of the fermionic operators in the near-horizon Kerr geometry, with the double-trace term modifying the boundary conditions. The average null energy is then computed by integrating the resulting stress-tensor expectation value along the null geodesic. While the manuscript reports the numerical and analytic results of this procedure, we acknowledge that the explicit integral and mode-sum expressions are not written out in full. In the revision we will insert the complete formula for the corrected two-point function together with the integral expression for the average null energy, making the dependence on mode frequency, temperature, and fermion mass directly verifiable. revision: yes

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No significant circularity; construction relies on external conjecture but derivation does not reduce to inputs by construction.

full rationale

The paper constructs a traversable wormhole via fermionic double-trace deformation in the near-horizon near-extremal Kerr geometry using the Kerr/CFT correspondence. The key step selects a boundary coupling that modifies the two-point function so its first-order correction supplies negative average null energy. This is an explicit construction choice, not a tautological redefinition or a fitted parameter renamed as a prediction. No load-bearing step reduces to a self-citation chain, imported uniqueness theorem, or ansatz smuggled from prior work by the same authors. The absence of fermionic superradiance is used to extend the description off-axis, but this follows from the field type rather than circular re-use of the target result. All reported dependence on frequency, temperature, mass, and time (early vs. late) follows from explicit evaluation of the modified correlator in the given background. The overall result remains a direct consequence of the chosen deformation within the stated framework rather than an identity.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

2 free parameters · 2 axioms · 0 invented entities

The central claim rests on the conjectural Kerr/CFT duality for near-horizon near-extremal geometry, the absence of fermionic superradiance, and the perturbative validity of the double-trace deformation supplying negative energy; no independent evidence for these is provided beyond the framework itself.

free parameters (2)
  • boundary coupling strength
    Chosen to produce the first-order correction that yields negative energy for wormhole opening.
  • fermion mass
    Affects the opening and traversability as a parameter in the mode analysis.
axioms (2)
  • domain assumption Near-horizon near-extremal Kerr geometry is dual to a conformal field theory
    Invoked to describe the background and apply double-trace deformation.
  • domain assumption Fermionic fields lack superradiance instability
    Allows wormhole description at every region including off-axis.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5584 in / 1686 out tokens · 34084 ms · 2026-05-08T16:41:28.239804+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

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