Timelike Liouville theory and AdS$_3$ gravity at finite cutoff

Abstract: We propose that AdS$_3$ gravity with conformal boundary conditions is described by coupling the holographic CFT to timelike Liouville theory and deforming by an exactly marginal operator. In this description, the Liouville field controls the finite-cutoff radial wall in the bulk. We check this proposal in the semiclassical limit by matching the sphere and torus partition functions between the bulk and boundary theories. By scaling parameters of the Liouville theory we can push our bulk description deep inside the interior of black hole geometries. The same scaling of parameters leads to a flat-space limit with a two-dimensional CFT as its holographic dual theory.