The AdS$_3$ Propagator and the Fate of Locality

Understand

We recently used Virasoro symmetry considerations to propose an exact formula for a bulk proto-field $\phi$ in AdS$_3$.

• In this paper we study the propagator $\langle \phi \phi \rangle$.
• We show that many techniques from the study of conformal blocks can be generalized to compute it, including the semiclassical monodromy method and both forms of the Zamolodchikov recursion relations.
• When the results from recursion are expanded at large central charge, they match gravitational perturbation theory for a free scalar field coupled to gravity in our chosen gauge.