Quantum microstate counting from Brownian motion: From many-body systems to black holes

We introduce a new way to produce infinite families of bases of a quantum system's Hilbert space, as well as methods to find its dimension. These families are constructed via Brownian motions in the Hilbert space, defined using disordered, time-dependent couplings. The dimension spanned by them has zero variance over the ensemble of disordered couplings, and it is determined by certain replica partition functions. We apply these methods to finite dimensional $q$-local systems (spin clusters and SYK) and black holes. For $q$-local systems we find exact expressions at finite $q$, $N$, and $t$, for replica partition functions, together with universal behavior at large times and a semiclassical analysis at large-$N$ in appropriate master field variables. The right Hilbert space dimension is obtained for any time $t>0$, $q>1$ and $N>0$. For black holes, the Brownian motions prepare quantitatively generic ensembles of black hole microstates, and the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is universally reproduced by counting those. There the $n$-replica partition functions are constructed by gluing $n$-traversable womrholes at their future and past. This method demonstrates the robustness of black hole microstate counting methods, avoiding several limitations of previous constructions, including the non-genericity of the microstates and associated interiors, implicit statistics of heavy operators, limited microscopic control over overlaps, and the need for specific limits in the calculation.