Black Hole Formation in AdS and Thermalization on the Boundary

Esko Keski-Vakkuri; Martin Kruczenski; Ulf H. Danielsson

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Black Hole Formation in AdS and Thermalization on the Boundary

Ulf H. Danielsson, Esko Keski-Vakkuri, Martin Kruczenski

High Energy Physics - Theory · Submitted 21 Dec 1999

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim The AdS/CFT duality relates the shell in the bulk to an off-equilibrium state of the boundary theory which evolves towards a thermal equilibrium when the shell collapses to a black hole.

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arXiv IDhep-th/9912209 (version 2)

Pith ID6JFNKS26, Pith's permanent record of this paper and its review

CitationEsko Keski-Vakkuri, Martin Kruczenski, Ulf H. Danielsson. "Black Hole Formation in AdS and Thermalization on the Boundary." arXiv:hep-th/9912209 (1999). https://pith.science/paper/6JFNKS26

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What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.03 · states limitation 0.90 · human participants 0.01 · controlled comparison 0.02 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.04 · compares with prior results 0.06 · mentions code or data availability 0.01.

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arXiv listing abstract v2. Results and the main claim are underlined; show every role.

We investigate black hole formation by a spherically collapsing thin shell of matter in AdS space. This process has been suggested to have a holographic interpretation as thermalization of the CFT on the boundary of the AdS space. The AdS/CFT duality relates the shell in the bulk to an off-equilibrium state of the boundary theory which evolves towards a thermal equilibrium when the shell collapses to a black hole. We use 2-point functions to obtain information about the spectrum of excitations in the off-equilibrium state, and discuss how it characterizes the approach towards thermal equilibrium. The full holographic interpretation of the gravitational collapse would require a kinetic theory of the CFT at strong coupling. We speculate that the kinetic equations should be interpreted as a holographic dual of the equation of motion of the collapsing shell.

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#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	We investigate black hole formation by a spherically collapsing thin shell of matter in AdS space.	contribution 0.95	0.84	0.04	asserted 0.94
s1	This process has been suggested to have a holographic interpretation as thermalization of the CFT on the boundary of the AdS space.	background 0.86	0.05	0.07	hedged possibility 0.98
s2	The AdS/CFT duality relates the shell in the bulk to an off-equilibrium state of the boundary theory which evolves towards a thermal equilibrium when the shell collapses to a black hole.	background 0.63	0.10	0.23	asserted 1.00
s3	We use 2-point functions to obtain information about the spectrum of excitations in the off-equilibrium state, and discuss how it characterizes the approach towards thermal equilibrium.	method 0.81	0.89	0.19	asserted 0.95
s4	The full holographic interpretation of the gravitational collapse would require a kinetic theory of the CFT at strong coupling.	limitation 0.79	0.07	0.07	asserted 0.68
s5	We speculate that the kinetic equations should be interpreted as a holographic dual of the equation of motion of the collapsing shell.	future work 0.58	0.11	0.17	speculative 1.00

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: theoretical result 0.82 · evidence from proof or derivation 0.62.

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arXiv listing abstract v2

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S sections
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C citations
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Original abstract

We investigate black hole formation by a spherically collapsing thin shell of matter in AdS space. This process has been suggested to have a holographic interpretation as thermalization of the CFT on the boundary of the AdS space. The AdS/CFT duality relates the shell in the bulk to an off-equilibrium state of the boundary theory which evolves towards a thermal equilibrium when the shell collapses to a black hole. We use 2-point functions to obtain information about the spectrum of excitations in the off-equilibrium state, and discuss how it characterizes the approach towards thermal equilibrium. The full holographic interpretation of the gravitational collapse would require a kinetic theory of the CFT at strong coupling. We speculate that the kinetic equations should be interpreted as a holographic dual of the equation of motion of the collapsing shell.

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References

Forward citations

Cited by 18 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

Weak Field Black Hole Formation in Asymptotically AdS Spacetimes
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Random matrix theory signatures in free field theory
hep-th 2025-07 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

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Curvature-squared and curvature-fourth corrections to holographic black branes create new poles that collide with hydrodynamic poles, and the viscosity-to-relaxation-time ratio flattens as the coupling weakens.
Holographic thermalization, quasinormal modes and superradiance in Kerr-AdS
hep-th 2013-12 accept novelty 6.0 of 10

Rotating anti-de Sitter black holes now have a computed gravitational quasinormal mode spectrum and superradiance onset curve, and the long-wavelength modes match the dual fluid's hydrodynamic relaxation rates.
Universality of Abrupt Holographic Quenches
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For abrupt quenches of a relevant operator in a holographic conformal field theory, the injected energy scales as the quench duration to the power d minus twice the operator dimension, independent of the initial state.
Evolution of Two-Point Functions from Holography
hep-th 2011-09 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

In a holographic 2D CFT thermalizing via gravitational collapse, late-time two-point functions depend on separation only through the combination l - t1 - t2, matching the quantum quench pattern.
Holographic Thermalization
hep-th 2011-03 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

In holographic quenches across two, three, and four dimensions, short-distance observables thermalize before long-distance ones, and entanglement entropy sets the slowest equilibration time, saturating a light-speed c...
Holographic Evolution of Entanglement Entropy
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Holographic entanglement entropy in a collapsing AdS3 black hole reproduces the Calabrese-Cardy result that entanglement in 2D CFTs propagates at v^2 = 1, with global equilibration never achieved.
Excursions beyond the horizon: Black hole singularities in Yang-Mills theories (I)
hep-th 2005-06 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

The curvature singularity of an AdS black hole is encoded in the exponential decay of finite-temperature Wightman functions at large imaginary frequency, and in the divergence of a newly constructed boundary observable.
The Black Hole Singularity in AdS/CFT
hep-th 2003-06 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

In five-dimensional AdS Schwarzschild the black hole singularity shows up as a singularity at a finite boundary time on a secondary sheet of the analytically continued two-point correlator.
Blackish Holes
hep-th 2024-11 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

Placing a Dirichlet wall just outside the BTZ horizon produces a dense spectrum of normal modes that, in the continuum limit, yields a thermal two-point function at the Hawking temperature.
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In a holographic model where a thin shell of charged matter collapses to form a Reissner-Nordstrom-AdS black hole, the dual field theory thermalizes more slowly as the charge-to-temperature ratio increases.
Degenerate Stars and Gravitational Collapse in AdS/CFT
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How the literature uses it

33 arXiv papers cite this in 39 sentences

Each citing sentence is taken from the citing paper's LaTeX source and typed by Pith's classifier. A label appears at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), a contest at 0.7 or more; the quoted words are the citing authors'. How each label was checked · JSON

Papers citing it · 19 sentences without a confident label

Uses its method or tool 2 papers

Our aim is to use the collapsing shell model introduced in [ref] to gain insights into the thermalization process of a strongly coupled $𝒩=4$ SYM plasma via the gravitational collapse of a spherically symmetric shell of matter in anti deSitter space.

Holographic thermalization in N=4 Super Yang-Mills theory at finite coupling · The collapsing shell model · 0.96
We wish to use the collapsing shell model of [ref] to gain insights into the thermalization process of strongly coupled $𝒩=4$ SYM plasma.

Probing the pattern of holographic thermalization with photons · Generalities · 0.93

Compares with it 1 paper

Note that, similar analyses have previously appeared in [ref] , however, there are two crucial differences with our work here.

Blackish Holes · Probe Scalar Quantization: Collapsing Black Holes · 0.97

Cites it as background 17 papers

One prominent example of such models involves the gravitational collapse of an infinitesimally thin but massive shell in AdS space [ref] ; following these papers, several works have addressed a variety of physical phenomena including particle production rates [ref] , the chiral magnetic effect [ref] , jet quenching [ref] and even elliptic flow [ref] .

Gravitational collapse of thin shells: Time evolution of the holographic entanglement entropy · Introduction · 0.80
This is an interesting problem, which has been addressed in several works in the past [ref] .

Degenerate Stars and Gravitational Collapse in AdS/CFT · INTRODUCTION · 0.93
In holography, the importance of the quasinormal spectrum as the fundamental characteristic feature of near-equilibrium phenomena in a dual field theory has been recognized early on [ref] , [ref] , [ref] and later it was observed [ref] and shown [ref] , [ref] that the quasinormal frequencies correspond to poles of the dual retarded correlators.

From strong to weak coupling in holographic models of thermalization · Relaxation times at weak and strong coupling · 0.95

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