Resurgent Asymptotics of Jackiw-Teitelboim Gravity and the Nonperturbative Topological Recursion

Abstract: Jackiw-Teitelboim dilaton-quantum-gravity localizes on a double-scaled random-matrix model, whose perturbative free energy is an asymptotic series. Understanding the resurgent properties of this asymptotic series, including its completion into a full transseries, requires understanding the nonperturbative instanton sectors of the matrix model for Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. The present work addresses this question by setting-up instanton calculus associated to eigenvalue tunneling (or ZZ-brane contributions), directly in the matrix model. In order to systematize such calculations, a nonperturbative extension of the topological recursion formalism is required -- which is herein both constructed and applied to the present problem. Large-order tests of the perturbative genus expansion validate the resurgent nature of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity, both for its free energy and for its (multi-resolvent) correlation functions. Both ZZ and FZZT nonperturbative effects are required by resurgence, and they further display resonance upon the Borel plane. Finally, the resurgence properties of the multi-resolvent correlation functions yield new and improved resurgence formulae for the large-genus growth of Weil-Petersson volumes.