Deformations of JT Gravity and Matrix Models

In recent years, much progress has been made in understanding quantum gravity in lower dimensions. A key development was the discovery of a holographic duality between Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity, a solvable 2d quantum gravity, and a random matrix integral, interpreted as a ensemble average over Hamiltonians.

In this talk, I will first briefly review this result. I will then explain how to extend this duality to a large class of 2d dilaton-gravity theories, thought of as JT gravity deformed by a gas of conical defects, by exploiting its relation to a certain noncritical string theory.