Exact Virasoro Blocks from Wilson Lines and Background-Independent Operators

Understand

Aspects of black hole thermodynamics and information loss can be derived as a consequence of Virasoro symmetry.

• To bolster the connection between Virasoro conformal blocks and AdS$_3$ quantum gravity, we study sl$(2)$ Chern-Simons Wilson line networks and revisit the idea that they compute a variety of CFT$_2$ observables, including Virasoro OPE blocks, exactly.
• We verify this in the semiclassical large central charge limit and to low orders in a perturbative $1/c$ expansion.
• Wilson lines connecting the boundary to points in the bulk play a natural role in bulk reconstruction.