Geometries from field theories

We propose a method to define a d+1-dimensional geometry from a d-dimensional quantum field theory in the 1/N expansion. We first construct a d+1-dimensional field theory from the d-dimensional one via the gradient-flow equation, whose flow time t represents the energy scale of the system such that t→0 corresponds to the ultraviolet and t→∞ to the infrared. We then define the induced metric from d+1-dimensional field operators. We show that the metric defined in this way becomes classical in the large-N limit, in the sense that quantum fluctuations of the metric are suppressed as 1/N due to the large-N factorization property. As a concrete example, we apply our method to the O(N) nonlinear σ model in two dimensions. We calculate the 3D induced metric, which is shown to describe an anti-de Sitter space in the massless limit. Finally, we discuss several open issues for future studies