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arXiv:1705.01486 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Modular Hamiltonians of excited states, OPE blocks and emergent bulk fields

Gábor Sárosi, Tomonori Ugajin

Published Jan 1, 2018• 66 citations
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Abstract

We study the entanglement entropy and the modular Hamiltonian of slightly excited states reduced to a ball shaped region in generic conformal field theories. We set up a formal expansion in the one point functions of the state in which all orders are explicitly given in terms of integrals of multi-point functions along the vacuum modular flow, without a need for replica index analytic continuation. We show that the quadratic order contributions in this expansion can be calculated in a way expected from holography, namely via the bulk canonical energy for the entanglement entropy, and its variation for the modular Hamiltonian. The bulk fields contributing to the canonical energy are defined via the HKLL procedure. In terms of CFT variables, the contribution of each such bulk field to the modular Hamiltonian is given by the OPE block corresponding to the dual operator integrated along the vacuum modular flow. These results do not rely on assuming large N or other special properties of the CFT and therefore they are purely kinematic.

DOI
10.1007/jhep01(2018)012

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We study the entanglement entropy and the modular Hamiltonian of slightly excited states reduced to a ball shaped region in generic conformal field theories. We set up a formal expansion in the one point functions of the state in which all orders are explicitly given in terms of integrals of multi-point functions along the vacuum modular flow, without a need for replica index analytic continuation. We show that the quadratic order contributions in this expansion can be calculated in a way expected from holography, namely via the bulk canonical energy for the entanglement entropy, and its variation for the modular Hamiltonian. The bulk fields contributing to the canonical energy are defined via the HKLL procedure. In terms of CFT variables, the contribution of each such bulk field to the modular Hamiltonian is given by the OPE block corresponding to the dual operator integrated along the vacuum modular flow. These results do not rely on assuming large N or other special properties of the CFT and therefore they are purely kinematic.
We further develop perturbative methods used to calculate entanglement entropy (EE) away from an interacting CFT fixed point. At second order we find certain universal terms in the renormalized EE which were predicted previously from holography and which we find hold universally for relevant deformations of any CFT in any dimension. We use both replica methods and direct methods to calculate the EE and in both cases find a non-local integral expression involving the CFT two point function. We show that this integral expression can be written as a local integral over a higher dimensional bulk modular hamiltonian in an emergent AdS space-time. This bulk modular hamiltonian is associated to an emergent scalar field dual to the deforming operator. We generalize to arbitrary spatially dependent couplings where a linearized metric emerges naturally as a way of efficiently encoding the field theory entanglement: by demanding that Einstein’s equations coupled to the bulk scalar field are satisfied, we show that EE can be calculated as the area of this metric. Not only does this show a direct emergence of a higher dimensional gravitational theory from any CFT, it allows for effective evaluation of the the integrals required to calculate EE perturbativly. Our results can also be interpreted as relating the non-locality of the modular hamiltonian for a spherical region in non-CFTs and the non-locality of the holographic bulk to boundary map.
For holographic CFT states near the vacuum, entanglement entropies for spatial subsystems can be expressed perturbatively as an expansion in the one-point functions of local operators dual to light bulk fields. Using the connection between quantum Fisher information for CFT states and canonical energy for the dual spacetimes, we describe a general formula for this expansion up to second-order in the one-point functions, for an arbitrary ball-shaped region, extending the first-order result given by the entanglement first law. For two-dimensional CFTs, we use this to derive a completely explicit formula for the second-order contribution to the entanglement entropy from the stress tensor. We show that this stress tensor formula can be reproduced by a direct CFT calculation for states related to the vacuum by a local conformal transformation. This result can also be reproduced via the perturbative solution to a non-linear scalar wave equation on an auxiliary de Sitter spacetime, extending the first-order result in arXiv:1509.00113 .
In this work we study the Tomita-Takesaki construction for a family of excited states that, in a strongly coupled CFT---at large NNN---correspond to coherent states in an asymptotically AdS spacetime geometry. We compute the modular flow and modular Hamiltonian associated to these excited states in the Rindler wedge and for a ball shaped entangling surface. Using holography, one can compute the bulk modular flow and construct the Tomita-Takesaki theory for these cases. We also discuss generalizations of the entanglement regions in the bulk and how to evaluate the modular Hamiltonian in a large N approximation. Finally, we extend the holographic Banks, Douglas, Horowitz and Matinec (BDHM) formula to compute the modular evolution of operators in the corresponding CFT algebra, and propose this as a more general prescription.
We present a novel replica trick that computes the relative entropy of two arbitrary states in conformal field theory. Our replica trick is based on the analytic continuation of partition functions that break the Z_{n} replica symmetry. It provides a method for computing arbitrary matrix elements of the modular Hamiltonian corresponding to excited states in terms of correlation functions. We show that the quantum Fisher information in vacuum can be expressed in terms of two-point functions on the replica geometry. We perform sample calculations in two-dimensional conformal field theories.
We present a new perspective on bulk reconstruction using Berry phases in the boundary conformal field theory (CFT). Our parallel transport of modular Hamiltonians is associated to a trajectory in the space of states, which we obtain from the insertion of a source in the Euclidean path integral. Using a modular version of the extrapolate dictionary and the equivalence between modular flow in the boundary and the bulk, we show that the expectation value of the modular Berry curvature on the boundary agrees with an appropriately defined bulk symplectic form associated to the entanglement wedge. In addition, we derive a quantum information metric on the space of density matrices from the Berry curvature, which is related to the canonical energy in the bulk. We also explore the case where a state change reduces to a shape change, uncovering the coadjoint orbit structure of kinematic space in higher dimensions.
We study half-space/Rindler modular Hamiltonians for excited states created by turning on sources for local operators in the Euclidean path integral in relativistic quantum field theories. We derive a simple, manifestly Lorentzian formula for the modular Hamiltonian to all orders in perturbation theory in the sources. We apply this formula to the case of shape-deformed half spaces in the vacuum state, and obtain the corresponding modular Hamiltonian to all orders in the shape deformation in terms of products of half-sided null energy operators, i.e., stress tensor components integrated along the future and past Rindler horizons. In the special case where the shape deformation is purely null, our perturbation series can be resummed, and agrees precisely with the known formula for vacuum modular Hamiltonians for null cuts of the Rindler horizon. Finally, we study some universal properties of modular flow (corresponding to Euclidean path integral states) of local operators inside correlation functions in conformal field theories. In particular, we show how the flow becomes the local boost in the limit where the operator being flowed approaches the entanglement cut.