From minimal strings towards Jackiw–Teitelboim gravity: on their resurgence, resonance, and black holes

Abstract Two remarkable facts about Jackiw–Teitelboim (JT) two-dimensional dilaton-gravity have been recently uncovered: this theory is dual to an ensemble of quantum mechanical theories; and such ensembles are described by a random matrix model which itself may be regarded as a special (large matter-central-charge) limit of minimal string theory. This work addresses this limit, putting it in its broader matrix-model context; comparing results between multicritical models and minimal strings (i.e. changing in-between multicritical and conformal backgrounds); and in both cases making the limit of large matter-central-charge precise (as such limit can also be defined for the multicritical series). These analyses are first done via spectral geometry, at both perturbative and nonperturbative levels, addressing the resurgent large-order growth of perturbation theory, alongside a calculation of nonperturbative instanton-actions and corresponding Stokes data. This calculation requires an algorithm to reach large-order, which is valid for arbitrary two-dimensional topological gravity. String equations—as derived from the Gel’fand–Dikii construction of the resolvent—are analyzed in both multicritical and minimal string theoretic contexts, and studied both perturbatively and nonperturbatively (always matching against the earlier spectral-geometry computations). The resulting solutions, as described by resurgent transseries, are shown to be resonant. The large matter-central-charge limit is addressed—in the string-equation context—and, in particular, the string equation for JT gravity is obtained to next derivative-orders, beyond the known genus-zero case (its possible exact-form is also discussed). Finally, a discussion of gravitational perturbations to Schwarzschild-like black hole solutions in these minimal-string models, regarded as deformations of JT gravity, is included—alongside a brief discussion of quasinormal modes.