The Regge limit of AdS3 holographic correlators with heavy states: towards the black hole regime

We examine the Regge limit of holographic 4-point correlation functions in AdS3× S3 involving two heavy and two light operators. In this kinematic regime such correlators can be reconstructed from the bulk phase shift accumulated by the light probe as it traverses the geometry dual to the heavy operator. We work perturbatively — but to arbitrary orders — in the ratio of the heavy operator’s conformal dimension to the dual CFT2’s central charge, thus going beyond the low order results of [1] and [2]. In doing so, we derive all-order relations between the bulk phase shift and the Regge limit OPE data of a class of heavy-light multi-trace operators exchanged in the cross-channel. Furthermore, we analyse two examples for which the relevant 4-point correlators are known explicitly to all orders: firstly the case of heavy operators dual to AdS3 conical defect geometries and secondly the case of non-trivial smooth geometries representing microstates of the two-charge D1-D5 black hole.