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arXiv:1809.03516 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Properties of modular Hamiltonians on entanglement plateaux

Raimond Abt, Johanna Erdmenger B

Published Nov 1, 2018• 9 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract The modular Hamiltonian of reduced states, given essentially by the logarithm of the reduced density matrix, plays an important role within the AdS/CFT correspondence in view of its relation to quantum information. In particular, it is an essential ingredient for quantum information measures of distances between states, such as the relative entropy and the Fisher information metric. However, the modular Hamiltonian is known explicitly only for a few examples. For a family of states ρ λ that is parametrized by a scalar λ, the first order contribution in $$ \overset{\sim }{\lambda } = \lambda -{\lambda}_0 $$ λ ∼ = λ − λ 0 of the modular Hamiltonian to the relative entropy between ρλ and a reference state ρλ 0 is completely determined by the entanglement entropy, via the first law of entanglement. For several examples, e.g. for ball-shaped regions in the ground state of CFTs, higher order contributions are known to vanish. In these cases the modular Hamiltonian contributes to the Fisher information metric in a trivial way. We investigate under which conditions the modular Hamiltonian provides a non-trivial contribution to the Fisher information metric, i.e. when the contribution of the modular Hamiltonian to the relative entropy is of higher order in $$ \overset{\sim }{\lambda } $$ λ ∼ . We consider one-parameter families of reduced states on two entangling regions that form an entanglement plateau, i.e. the entanglement entropies of the two regions saturate the Araki-Lieb inequality. We show that in general, at least one of the relative entropies of the two entangling regions is expected to involve $$ \overset{\sim }{\lambda } $$ λ ∼ contributions of higher order from the modular Hamiltonian. Furthermore, we consider the implications of this observation for prominent AdS/CFT examples that form entanglement plateaux in the large N limit.

DOI
10.1007/jhep11(2018)002

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Abstract The modular Hamiltonian of reduced states, given essentially by the logarithm of the reduced density matrix, plays an important role within the AdS/CFT correspondence in view of its relation to quantum information. In particular, it is an essential ingredient for quantum information measures of distances between states, such as the relative entropy and the Fisher information metric. However, the modular Hamiltonian is known explicitly only for a few examples. For a family of states ρ λ that is parametrized by a scalar λ, the first order contribution in λ∼=λ−λ0\overset{\sim }{\lambda } = \lambda -{\lambda}_0λ∼=λ−λ0​ λ ∼ = λ − λ 0 of the modular Hamiltonian to the relative entropy between ρλ and a reference state ρλ 0 is completely determined by the entanglement entropy, via the first law of entanglement. For several examples, e.g. for ball-shaped regions in the ground state of CFTs, higher order contributions are known to vanish. In these cases the modular Hamiltonian contributes to the Fisher information metric in a trivial way. We investigate under which conditions the modular Hamiltonian provides a non-trivial contribution to the Fisher information metric, i.e. when the contribution of the modular Hamiltonian to the relative entropy is of higher order in λ∼\overset{\sim }{\lambda }λ∼ λ ∼ . We consider one-parameter families of reduced states on two entangling regions that form an entanglement plateau, i.e. the entanglement entropies of the two regions saturate the Araki-Lieb inequality. We show that in general, at least one of the relative entropies of the two entangling regions is expected to involve λ∼\overset{\sim }{\lambda }λ∼ λ ∼ contributions of higher order from the modular Hamiltonian. Furthermore, we consider the implications of this observation for prominent AdS/CFT examples that form entanglement plateaux in the large N limit.
The modular Hamiltonian plays an important role in quantum information theory, quantum field theory, and the AdS/CFT correspondence. In this paper, we study a specific dynamical setup: starting from the tensor product of the reduced density matrices of a reference state, we evolve this product state under the modular flow generated by the reference state itself. We then investigate the resulting change in the entanglement entropy of a given region, which we call the modular entanglement shift (MES). Unlike evolution under a fixed quantum channel, this modular evolution obeys no general principle requiring the MES to have a definite sign. For a bipartition into subsystems A and B, we establish an exact entropy balance: the sum of the MESs for A and B equals the mutual information generated along the orbit. Consequently, their sum is nonnegative, even though either individual shift may be negative. For two disjoint intervals in the vacuum of a two-dimensional conformal field theory, however, we prove that a global conformal involution exchanging the intervals forces the two MESs to be equal. It follows that each MES is nonnegative along the modular flow. We establish this result both using a conformally transported regulator and intrinsically in terms of Araki relative entropy. Finally, we identify the modular-flow orbit with a Connes cocycle orbit and discuss possible applications to the AdS/CFT correspondence.
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.
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We extend the holographic test of entanglement cohomology from d=2d=2d=2 to higher-dimensional conformal field theories. For a ddd-dimensional CFT with a spherical entangling region AAA, the vacuum modular Hamiltonian is known explicitly, and the boundary relative entropy of a primary-operator perturbation can be computed via conformal Ward identities. On the bulk side, the perturbation is dual to a scalar field in AdSd+1_{d+1}d+1​, and the bulk canonical energy is computed using the JLMS relation. We carry out the computation explicitly for d=3d=3d=3 and d=4d=4d=4 and find that the boundary and bulk results agree at first order in the perturbation, with identical coefficients κdΔ2/CTκ_d Δ^2 / C_Tκd​Δ2/CT​, where κ3=π2/12κ_3 = π^2/12κ3​=π2/12 and κ4=3π3/16κ_4 = 3π^3/16κ4​=3π3/16. The result extends the quantitative verification of the holographic dual of entanglement cohomology beyond the d=2d=2d=2 case treated in the companion paper and confirms that the modular Hamiltonian perturbation is the correct holographic image of the first entanglement cohomology class. We discuss the role of the conformal anomaly, the shape of the entanglement wedge, and an outlook on TsT-deformed backgrounds. \keywords{Entanglement entropy \and Cyclic cohomology \and von Neumann algebras \and Holography \and Modular Hamiltonian}
Abstract The reduced density matrix of a given subsystem, denoted by ρA, contains the information on subregion duality in a holographic theory. We may extract the information by using the spectrum (eigenvalue) of the matrix, called entanglement spectrum in this paper. We evaluate the density of eigenstates, one-point and two-point correlation functions in the microcanonical ensemble state ρA,m associated with an eigenvalue λ for some examples, including a single interval and two intervals in vacuum state of 2D CFTs. We find there exists a microcanonical ensemble state with λ0 which can be seen as an approximate state of ρA. The parameter λ0 is obtained in the two examples. For a general geometric state, the approximate microcanonical ensemble state also exists. The parameter λ0 is associated with the entanglement entropy of A and Rényi entropy in the limit n → ∞. As an application of the above conclusion we reform the equality case of the Araki-Lieb inequality of the entanglement entropies of two intervals in vacuum state of 2D CFTs as conditions of Holevo information. We show the constraints on the eigenstates. Finally, we point out some unsolved problems and their significance on understanding the geometric states.
We study modular Hamiltonians corresponding to the vacuum state for deformed half-spaces in relativistic quantum field theories on R1,d-1. We show that in addition to the usual boost generator, there is a contribution to the modular Hamiltonian at first order in the shape deformation, proportional to the integral of the null components of the stress tensor along the Rindler horizon. We use this fact along with monotonicity of relative entropy to prove the averaged null energy condition in Minkowski space-time. This subsequently gives a new proof of the Hofman-Maldacena bounds on the parameters appearing in CFT three-point functions. Our main technical advance involves adapting newly developed perturbative methods for calculating entanglement entropy to the problem at hand. Our methods were recently used to prove certain results on the shape dependence of entanglement in CFTs and here we generalize these results to excited states and real time dynamics. Finally, we discuss the AdS/CFT counterpart of this result, making connection with the recently proposed gravitational dual for modular Hamiltonians in holographic theories.