Scrambling time from local perturbations of the eternal BTZ black hole

Abstract

We compute the mutual information between finite intervals in two non-compact 2d CFTs in the thermofield double formulation after one of them has been locally perturbed by a primary operator at some time t<inf>ω</inf> in the large c limit. We determine the time scale, called the scrambling time, at which the mutual information vanishes and the original entanglement between the thermofield double gets destroyed by the perturbation. We provide a holographic description in terms of a free falling particle in the eternal BTZ black hole that exactly matches our CFT calculations. Our results hold for any time t<inf>ω</inf>. In particular, when the latter is large, they reproduce the bulk shock-wave propagation along the BTZ horizon description.