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arXiv:2102.07774 · Classical and Quantum Gravity

A world without pythons would be so simple

Netta Engelhardt, Geoff Penington, Arvin Shahbazi-Moghaddam

Published Oct 7, 2021• 64 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract We show that bulk operators lying between the outermost extremal surface and the asymptotic boundary admit a simple boundary reconstruction in the classical limit. This is the converse of the Python’s lunch conjecture, which proposes that operators with support between the minimal and outermost (quantum) extremal surfaces—e.g. the interior Hawking partners—are highly complex. Our procedure for reconstructing this ‘simple wedge’ is based on the HKLL construction, but uses causal bulk propagation of perturbed boundary conditions on Lorentzian timefolds to expand the causal wedge as far as the outermost extremal surface. As a corollary, we establish the Simple Entropy proposal for the holographic dual of the area of a marginally trapped surface as well as a similar holographic dual for the outermost extremal surface. We find that the simple wedge is dual to a particular coarse-grained CFT state, obtained via averaging over all possible Python’s lunches. An efficient quantum circuit converts this coarse-grained state into a ‘simple state’ that is indistinguishable in finite time from a state with a local modular Hamiltonian. Under certain circumstances, the simple state modular Hamiltonian generates an exactly local flow; we interpret this result as a holographic dual of black hole uniqueness.

DOI
10.1088/1361-6382/ac2de5

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Abstract We show that bulk operators lying between the outermost extremal surface and the asymptotic boundary admit a simple boundary reconstruction in the classical limit. This is the converse of the Python’s lunch conjecture, which proposes that operators with support between the minimal and outermost (quantum) extremal surfaces—e.g. the interior Hawking partners—are highly complex. Our procedure for reconstructing this ‘simple wedge’ is based on the HKLL construction, but uses causal bulk propagation of perturbed boundary conditions on Lorentzian timefolds to expand the causal wedge as far as the outermost extremal surface. As a corollary, we establish the Simple Entropy proposal for the holographic dual of the area of a marginally trapped surface as well as a similar holographic dual for the outermost extremal surface. We find that the simple wedge is dual to a particular coarse-grained CFT state, obtained via averaging over all possible Python’s lunches. An efficient quantum circuit converts this coarse-grained state into a ‘simple state’ that is indistinguishable in finite time from a state with a local modular Hamiltonian. Under certain circumstances, the simple state modular Hamiltonian generates an exactly local flow; we interpret this result as a holographic dual of black hole uniqueness.
In the AdS/CFT correspondence, a subregion of the CFT allows for the recovery of a corresponding subregion of the bulk known as its entanglement wedge. In some cases, an entanglement wedge contains a locally but not globally minimal surface homologous to the CFT subregion, in which case it is said to contain a python’s lunch. It has been proposed that python’s lunch geometries should be modelled by tensor networks that feature projective operations where the wedge narrows. This model leads to the python’s lunch (PL) conjecture, which asserts that reconstructing information from past the locally minimal surface is computationally difficult. In this work, we use cryptographic tools related to a primitive known as the Conditional Disclosure of Secrets (CDS) to develop consequences of the projective tensor network model that can be checked directly in AdS/CFT. We argue from the tensor network picture that the mutual information between appropriate CFT subregions is lower bounded linearly by an area difference associated with the geometry of the lunch. Recalling that the mutual information is also computed by bulk extremal surfaces, this gives a checkable geometrical consequence of the tensor network model. We prove weakened versions of this geometrical statement in asymptotically AdS _{2+1} 2 + 1 spacetimes satisfying the null energy condition, and confirm it in some example geometries, supporting the tensor network model and by proxy the PL conjecture.
In this note, we study the stabilizer complexity of the reduced density matrix corresponding to one side of a partially entangled thermal (PET) state with fixed energy boundary conditions in a holographic CFT. In particular, we study Wigner negativity, an operationally meaningful magic monotone which can be interpreted as the complexity of classically simulating any quantum circuit preparation of the reduced state on the subregion. Using assumptions on the pseudorandomness of the CFT spectrum and the heavy operator insertion, we observe that the Wigner negativity of the PET state relative to the microcanonical density matrix at the given energy is given by exp⁡[18GN(Aout−Amin)]\exp\left[\frac{1}{8G_N}(A_{\text{out}} - A_{\text{min}})\right]exp[8GN​1​(Aout​−Amin​)], where AoutA_{\text{out}}Aout​ is the area of the outer extremal surface, while AminA_{\text{min}}Amin​ is the area of the minimal extremal surface. Thus, the stabilizer complexity of the reduced density matrix on the boundary subregion is O(1)O(1)O(1) in the absence of a python's lunch, but gets exponentially enhanced in the presence of a python's lunch in the bulk geometry.
Abstract We argue that novel (highly nonclassical) quantum extremal surfaces (QESs) play a crucial role in reconstructing the black hole interior even for isolated, single-sided, non-evaporating black holes (i.e. with no auxiliary reservoir). Specifically, any code subspace where interior outgoing modes can be excited will have a QES in its maximally mixed state. We argue that as a result, reconstruction of interior outgoing modes is always exponentially complex. Our construction provides evidence in favor of a strong python’s lunch proposal: that nonminimal QESs are the exclusive source of exponential complexity in the holographic dictionary. We also comment on the relevance of these QESs to the geometrization of state dependence in the typicality arguments for firewalls.
We show that the area operator of a quantum extremal surface can be reconstructed directly from boundary dynamics without reference to bulk geometry. Our approach combines the operator-algebra quantum error-correction (OAQEC) structure of AdS/CFT with modular Krylov complexity. Using Lanczos coefficients of boundary modular dynamics, we extract the spectrum of the modular Hamiltonian restricted to the algebra of the entanglement wedge and isolate its central contribution, which is identified with the area operator. The construction is purely boundary-based and applies to superpositions of semiclassical geometries as well. As a prospective application, we discuss island formation and the Page transition in evaporating black holes using boundary modular evolution, bypassing any bulk extremization. More broadly, our results establish modular Krylov complexity as a probe of emergent spacetime geometry, providing a new route to accessing black hole interiors from boundary quantum dynamics.
Motivated by the ability to consistently apply the Ryu-Takayanagi prescription for general convex surfaces and the relationship between entanglement and geometry in tensor networks, we introduce a novel, covariant bulk object---the holographic slice. The holographic slice is found by considering the continual removal of short-range information in a boundary state. It thus provides a natural interpretation as the bulk dual of a series of coarse-grained holographic states. The slice possesses many desirable properties that provide consistency checks for its boundary interpretation. These include the monotonicity of both area and entanglement entropy, uniqueness, and the inability to probe beyond late-time black hole horizons. Additionally, the holographic slice illuminates physics behind entanglement shadows, as minimal-area extremal surfaces anchored to a coarse-grained boundary may probe entanglement shadows. This lets the slice flow through shadows. To aid in developing intuition for these slices, many explicit examples of holographic slices are investigated. Finally, the relationship to tensor networks and renormalization (particularly in AdS/CFT\mathrm{AdS}/\mathrm{CFT}AdS/CFT) is discussed.
Bulk reconstruction is a central problem in AdS/CFT, and entanglement wedge reconstruction is its subregion version. We argue that this subregion statement should be separated from the stronger holographic quantum error correction interpretation, in which one region-independent logical bulk operator has code-preserving representatives in several boundary regions. A simple locality argument shows that such a common reconstruction must commute with the code-preserving local algebras in the complementary regions. This is the mechanism realized in HaPPY-type codes: the erased regions are blind to a protected logical algebra. An ordinary finite NNN holographic CFT does not have such a protected invisible sector for supergravity fields. Its low-energy local observables, in particular, suitably smeared stress tensors, detect the physical support and gravitational dressing of ordinary bulk operators, up to possible center or superselection data. Thus, there is no such holographic quantum error correction and the N=∞N=\inftyN=∞ agreement of global and subregion HKLL formulae is a free-theory statement. What remains is entanglement wedge reconstruction without holographic quantum error correction, or subregion complementarity: each boundary region has its own code-preserving low-energy algebra and its own region-adapted bulk interpretation, rather than a shared logical operator.