Bulk Cluster Decomposition in AdS/CFT and A No-Go Theorem for Correlators in Microstates of Extremal Black Holes

Abstract

Applying the thermo-field double formalism to extremal black holes in AdS with a macroscopic horizon, we show that (1) there exists a natural basis for the degenerate microstates of an extremal black hole, and (2) cluster decomposition in the bulk implies that all correlators are exactly the same for every microstate of the extremal black hole. The latter statement can be interpreted in two ways. First, at the fully non-perturbative level of AdS/CFT at finite N, it means that cluster decomposition does not hold in the bulk. This may be viewed as a sharp manifestation of the bulk non-locality at finite N. Second, at the level of the perturbation theory in 1/N, in which case we expect the bulk cluster decomposition, no measurement of either boundary operators or bulk field operators can distinguish the different microstates. The latter interpretation may exclude some versions of the fuzzball conjecture that assert that different microstates of a black hole are realized in the bulk as different metric and field configurations.