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arXiv:2107.12634

A new look at the entanglement entropy of a single interval in a 2d CFT

Jennifer Lin

Published Jul 27, 2021• 1 citation
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Abstract

In this note, I revisit the problem of computing the entanglement entropy of a single interval in the ground state of a 2d CFT. I write the leading-order result in three different ways: once by doing the replica trick with the $n$-replicated cylinder partition function computed in the ``closed string channel"; once by computing the $n$-replicated cylinder partition function in the ``open string channel", where the entanglement entropy can be related to the density of states in a boundary CFT defined on the interval; and for holographic CFTs, once as the log of a Plancherel measure for a certain noncompact quantum group. I comment on the implications for what the Ryu-Takayanagi area term might be counting in holographic CFTs.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2107.12634

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In this note, I revisit the problem of computing the entanglement entropy of a single interval in the ground state of a 2d CFT. I write the leading-order result in three different ways: once by doing the replica trick with the nnn-replicated cylinder partition function computed in the closed string channel"; once by computing the $n$-replicated cylinder partition function in the open string channel", where the entanglement entropy can be related to the density of states in a boundary CFT defined on the interval; and for holographic CFTs, once as the log of a Plancherel measure for a certain noncompact quantum group. I comment on the implications for what the Ryu-Takayanagi area term might be counting in holographic CFTs.
In this paper, we study the entanglement entropy of a single interval on a cylinder in two-dimensional TT‾T\overline{T}TT-deformed conformal field theory (CFT). For such case, the (R\'enyi) entanglement entropy takes a universal form in a CFT. We compute the correction due to the deformation up to the leading order of the deformation parameter in the framework of the conformal perturbation theory. We find that the correction to the entanglement entropy is nonvanishing in the finite temperature case, while it is vanishing in the finite size case. For the deformed holographic large ccc CFT, which is proposed to be dual to a AdS3{\mathrm{AdS}}_{3}AdS3​ gravity in a finite region, we find the agreement with the holographic entanglement entropy via the Ryu-Takayanagi formula. Moreover, we compute the leading order correction to the R\'enyi entropy, and discuss its holographic picture as well.
Two-dimensional conformal field theories with a large central charge and a small number of low-dimension operators are studied using the conformal block expansion. A universal formula is derived for the Renyi entropies of N disjoint intervals in the ground state, valid to all orders in a series expansion. This is possible because the full perturbative answer in this regime comes from the exchange of the stress tensor and other descendants of the vacuum state. Therefore, the Renyi entropy is related to the Virasoro vacuum block at large central charge. The entanglement entropy, computed from the Renyi entropy by an analytic continuation, decouples into a sum of single-interval entanglements. This field theory result agrees with the Ryu-Takayanagi formula for the holographic entanglement entropy of a 2d CFT, applied to any number of intervals, and thus can be interpreted as a microscopic calculation of the area of minimal surfaces in 3d gravity.
We show that in holographic 2d CFTs, the entanglement entropies across several choices of global state and subregion can be written in a way that at once has a microscopic interpretation and matches the leading large−c-c−c organization of the Ryu-Takayanagi formula. This representation is obtained by applying crossing symmetry to the replica manifolds. From the boundary point of view, each rewritten entropy looks like an algebraic entanglement entropy for the Virasoro algebra restricted to the region, with center labels obtained by coarse-graining heavy primaries of the BCFT on the regulated region into bins labeled by Liouville momenta. At large ccc, a resulting sum over bins is dominated by a saddle, and the O(c)O(c)O(c) part of the entropy comes from the Cardy density of heavy primaries in the dominant bin. We identify this O(c)O(c)O(c) part of the entropy with the Ryu-Takayanagi area. Physically, this suggests a concrete statistical origin for the Ryu-Takayanagi area as coming from coarse-grained Virasoro intertwiners across the entangling cut. The result also provides quantitative criteria for the amount of coarse-graining allowed for the consistency of the interpretation.
A bstract We consider linear superpositions of single particle excitations in a scalar field theory on AdS 3 and evaluate their contribution to the bulk entanglement entropy across the Ryu-Takayanagi surface. We compare the entanglement entropy of these excitations obtained using the Faulkner-Lewkowycz-Maldacena formula to the entanglement entropy of linear superposition of global descendants of a conformal primary in a large c CFT obtained using the replica trick. We show that the closed form expressions for the entanglement entropy in the small interval expansion both in gravity and the CFT precisely agree. The agreement serves as a non-trivial check of the FLM formula for the quantum corrections to holographic entanglement entropy as well as the methods developed in the CFT to evaluate entanglement entropy of descendants. Our checks includes an example in which the state is time dependent and spatially in-homogenous as well another example involving a coherent state with a Bañados geometry as its holographic dual.
We study the entanglement entropy (EE) and the R\'enyi entropy (RE) of multiple intervals in two-dimensional TT‾T\overline{T}TT- deformed conformal field theory (CFT) at a finite temperature by field theoretic and holographic methods. First, by the replica method with the twist operators, we construct the general formula of the RE and EE up to the first order of a deformation parameter. By using our general formula, we show that the EE of multiple intervals for a holographic CFT is just a summation of the single interval case even with the small deformation. This is a nontrivial consequence from the field theory perspective, though it may be expected by the Ryu-Takayanagi formula in holography. However, the deformed RE of the two intervals is a summation of the single interval case only if the separations between the intervals are big enough. It can be understood by the tension of the cosmic branes dual to the RE. We also study the holographic EE for single and two intervals with an arbitrary cutoff radius (dual to the TT‾T\overline{T}TT deformation) at any temperature. We confirm our holographic results agree with the field theory results with a small deformation and high temperature limit, as expected. For two intervals, there are two configurations for EE: disconnected (sss-channel) and connected (ttt-channel) ones. We investigate the phase transition between them as we change parameters: as the deformation or temperature increases the phase transition is suppressed and the disconnected phase is more favored.
In this paper, we propose a novel expansion to compute the large interval limit of the R\'enyi entropy of 2D conformal field theory (CFT) at high temperature. Via the replica trick, the single interval R\'enyi entropy of 2D CFT at finite temperature could be read from the partition function on nnn-sheeted torus connected with each other along a branch cut. We calculate the partition function by inserting a complete basis across the branch cut. Because of the monodromy condition across the branch cut in the large interval limit, the basis of the states should be the ones in the twist sector. We study the twist sector of a general module of CFT and find that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the twist sector states and the normal sector states. As an application, we revisit the noncompact free scalar theory and discuss the large interval limit of the R\'enyi entropy of this theory by using our proposal. We find complete agreement in the leading and next-leading orders with direct expansion of the exact partition function. Moreover, we prove the relation (10) between thermal entropy and the entanglement entropy for a generic CFT with discrete spectrum.