Exponentially Slow Thermalization from Weak Gravity

The study of quantum thermalization aims to understand the processes that lead to the emergence of thermal equilibrium in quantum many-body systems. While non-integrable systems are generally expected to thermalize, exceptions including many body localization and quantum scars have attracted a great deal of theoretical and experimental interest. In this paper, we establish a a surprising link between the weak gravity conjecture and thermalization in quantum field theory. The weak gravity conjecture asserts that all gauge forces must be stronger than gravity. We show that this implies the existence of states with exponentially slow thermalization in quantum field theories admitting a holographic description. These states are dual to meta-stable configurations in the asymptotically Anti de-Sitter bulk consisting of one or a few charged particles hovering over a Reissner-Nordstrom black hole.