Holographic cameras: an eye for the bulk

Abstract

We consider four-point correlators in an excited quantum state of a field theory. We show that, when the theory and state are holographic, a judiciously applied Fourier transform produces high-quality images of point-like bulk particles, revealing the geometry in which they move. For translation-invariant states, the bulk Einstein's equations amount to local differential equations on correlator data. In theories or states that are not holographic, images are too blurry to extract a bulk geometry. We verify this for gauge theories at various couplings and the 3D Ising model by adapting formulas from conformal Regge theory.