Semiclassical Virasoro blocks from AdS₃ gravity

We present a unified framework for the holographic computation of Virasoro conformal blocks at large central charge. In particular, we provide bulk constructions that correctly reproduce all semiclassical Virasoro blocks that are known explicitly from conformal field theory computations. The results revolve around the use of geodesic Witten diagrams, recently introduced in http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.00501, evaluated in locally AdS₃ geometries generated by backreaction of heavy operators. We also provide an alternative computation of the heavy-light semiclassical block — in which two external operators become parametrically heavy — as a certain scattering process involving higher spin gauge fields in AdS₃; this approach highlights the chiral nature of Virasoro blocks. These techniques may be systematically extended to compute corrections to these blocks and to interpolate amongst the different semiclassical regimes.