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arXiv:2409.19271 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Holographic Renyi entropy of 2d CFT in KdV generalized ensemble

Liangyu Chen, Anatoly Y. Dymarsky, Jia Tian, Huajia Wang

Published Jan 14, 2025• 4 citations
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Abstract

A bstract The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) in chaotic two dimensional CFTs is subtle due to infinitely many conserved KdV charges. Previous works have demonstrated that primary CFT eigenstates have flat entanglement spectrum, which is very different from the microcanonical ensemble. This result is an apparent contradiction to conventional ETH, which does not take KdV charges into account. In a companion paper [1], we resolve this discrepancy by studying the subsystem entropy of a chaotic CFT in KdV-generalized Gibbs and microcanonical ensembles. In this paper, we carry out parallel computations in the context of AdS/CFT. We focus on the high density limit, which is equivalent to thermodynamic limit in conformal theories. In this limit holographic Renyi entropy can be computed using the so-called gluing construction. We explicitly study the KdV-generalized microcanonical ensemble with the densities of the first two KdV charges $$ \left\langle {\mathcal{Q}}_1\right\rangle $$ Q 1 = q 1 , $$ \left\langle {\mathcal{Q}}_3\right\rangle $$ Q 3 = q 3 fixed and obeying q 3 − $$ {q}_1^2\ll {q}_1^2 $$ q 1 2 ≪ q 1 2 . In this regime we found that the refined Renyi entropy $$ {\overset{\sim }{S}}_n $$ S ~ n is n -independent for n > n cut , where n cut depends on q 1 , q 3 . By taking the primary state limit q 3 → $$ {q}_1^2 $$ q 1 2 , we recover flat entanglement spectrum characteristic of fixed-area states, in agreement with the primary state behavior. This provides a consistency check of the KdV-generalized ETH in 2d CFTs.

DOI
10.1007/jhep01(2025)067

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A bstract The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) in chaotic two dimensional CFTs is subtle due to infinitely many conserved KdV charges. Previous works have demonstrated that primary CFT eigenstates have flat entanglement spectrum, which is very different from the microcanonical ensemble. This result is an apparent contradiction to conventional ETH, which does not take KdV charges into account. In a companion paper [1], we resolve this discrepancy by studying the subsystem entropy of a chaotic CFT in KdV-generalized Gibbs and microcanonical ensembles. In this paper, we carry out parallel computations in the context of AdS/CFT. We focus on the high density limit, which is equivalent to thermodynamic limit in conformal theories. In this limit holographic Renyi entropy can be computed using the so-called gluing construction. We explicitly study the KdV-generalized microcanonical ensemble with the densities of the first two KdV charges ⟨Q1⟩\left\langle {\mathcal{Q}}_1\right\rangle⟨Q1​⟩ Q 1 = q 1 , ⟨Q3⟩\left\langle {\mathcal{Q}}_3\right\rangle⟨Q3​⟩ Q 3 = q 3 fixed and obeying q 3 − q12≪q12{q}_1^2\ll {q}_1^2q12​≪q12​ q 1 2 ≪ q 1 2 . In this regime we found that the refined Renyi entropy S∼n{\overset{\sim }{S}}_nS∼n​ S ~ n is n -independent for n > n cut , where n cut depends on q 1 , q 3 . By taking the primary state limit q 3 → q12{q}_1^2q12​ q 1 2 , we recover flat entanglement spectrum characteristic of fixed-area states, in agreement with the primary state behavior. This provides a consistency check of the KdV-generalized ETH in 2d CFTs.
We study subsystem entropies in 2d CFTs for subsystems constituting a finite fraction of the full system. We focus on the extensive contribution, which scales linearly with the subsystem size in the thermodynamic limit. We employ the so-called diagonal approximation to evaluate subsystem entropy for chaotic CFTs in the thermal state (canonical ensemble), the microcanonical ensemble, and in a primary state, matching previously known results. We then proceed to find analytic expressions for the subsystem entropy at leading order in c , when the global CFT state is the KdV-generalized Gibbs ensemble or the KdV-microcanonical ensemble. Previous studies of primary eigenstates have shown that, akin to the fixed-area states in AdS/CFT, the corresponding subsystem entanglement spectrum is flat. This behavior is seemingly in sharp contradiction with that of the thermal (microcanonical) state, and thus in apparent contradiction with the subsystem eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). In this paper, we resolve this issue by comparing the primary state with the KdV-(micro)canonical ensemble. We show that the results are consistent with the KdV-generalized version of the subsystem ETH, in which local properties of quantum eigenstates are governed by their values of conserved KdV charges. Our paper solidifies evidence for the KdV-generalized ETH in 2d CFTs and emphasizes Rényi entropy as a sensitive probe of the reduced-density matrix.
Abstract We investigate the Rényi entropy and entanglement entropy of an interval with an arbitrary length in the canonical ensemble, microcanonical ensemble and primary excited states at large energy density in the thermodynamic limit of a two-dimensional large central charge c conformal field theory. As a generalization of the recent work [17], the main purpose of the paper is to see whether one can distinguish these various large energy density states by the Rényi entropies of an interval at different size scales, namely, short, medium and long. Collecting earlier results and performing new calculations in order to compare with and fill gaps in the literature, we give a more complete and detailed analysis of the problem. Especially, we find some corrections to the recent results for the holographic Rényi entropy of a medium size interval, which enlarge the validity region of the results. Based on the Rényi entropies of the three interval scales, we find that Rényi entropy cannot distinguish the canonical and microcanonical ensemble states for a short interval, but can do the job for both medium and long intervals. At the leading order of large c the entanglement entropy cannot distinguish the canonical and microcanonical ensemble states for all interval lengths, but the difference of entanglement entropy for a long interval between the two states would appear with 1/c corrections. We also discuss Rényi entropy and entanglement entropy differences between the thermal states and primary excited state. Overall, our work provide an up-to-date picture of distinguishing different thermal or primary states at various length scales of the subsystem.
An outstanding problem in the framework of conformal thermodynamics concerns the interpretation of variations in the central charge CCC. In this paper, we construct a novel central-charge Rényi entropy via the Casini-Huerta-Myers (CHM) map by considering thermal CFTs on a hyperbolic cylinder within a fixed charge, field theory volume and central charge potential (Q~,V,μC)(\tilde{Q},\mathcal{V},μ_C)(Q~​,V,μC​) grand canonical ensemble. We demonstrate that the resulting entropy satisfies all four fundamental Rényi entropy inequalities throughout the admissible range of μCμ_CμC​, establishing its consistency as a genuine Rényi measure. Physically, this novel measure extends conventional Rényi entropy by capturing the degree of entanglement across a statistical ensemble of holographic CFTs with fluctuating degrees of freedom. Furthermore, our conformal thermodynamic analysis of near-extremal configurations reveals that residual entropy arises from the central charge sector rather than thermal excitations. The mass gap that separates the extremal state and the first thermal excitation introduces a characteristic temperature scale T~∗\tilde{T}_*T~∗​, which translates via the CHM map into a distinguished characteristic Rényi index n∗n_*n∗​. Crucially, we propose that n∗n_*n∗​ separates the theory space into two qualitatively distinct statistical regimes: a dominant-theory regime (n>n∗n > n_*n>n∗​) governed by the most probable CFT realizations, and a multi-theory regime (n<n∗n < n_*n<n∗​) where a broader spectrum of fluctuating theories and higher-energy modular excitations becomes increasingly relevant.
We investigate a weak version of subsystem eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) for a two-dimensional large central charge conformal field theory by comparing the local equivalence of high energy state and thermal state of canonical ensemble. We evaluate the single-interval Rényi entropy and entanglement entropy for a heavy primary state in short interval expansion. We verify the results of Rényi entropy by two different replica methods. We find nontrivial results at the eighth order of short interval expansion, which include an infinite number of higher order terms in the large central charge expansion. We then evaluate the relative entropy of the reduced density matrices to measure the difference between the heavy primary state and thermal state of canonical ensemble, and find that the aforementioned nontrivial eighth order results make the relative entropy unsuppressed in the large central charge limit. By using Pinsker’s and Fannes-Audenaert inequalities, we can exploit the results of relative entropy to yield the lower and upper bounds on trace distance of the excited-state and thermal-state reduced density matrices. Our results are consistent with subsystem weak ETH, which requires the above trace distance is of power-law suppression by the large central charge. However, we are unable to pin down the exponent of power-law suppression. As a byproduct we also calculate the relative entropy to measure the difference between the reduced density matrices of two different heavy primary states.
Infinite-dimensional conformal symmetry in two dimensions leads to integrability of 2D conformal field theories (CFTs) by giving rise to an infinite tower of local conserved quantum Korteweg-de Vries (qKdV) charges in involution. We discuss how the presence of conserved charges constrains equilibration in 2D CFTs. We propose that in the thermodynamic limit large central charge 2D CFTs satisfy generalized eigenstate thermalization, with the values of qKdV charges forming a complete set of thermodynamically relevant quantities, which unambiguously determine expectation values of all local observables from the vacuum family. Equivalence of ensembles further provides that local properties of an eigenstate can be described by the generalized Gibbs ensemble that includes only qKdV charges. In the case of a general initial state, upon equilibration, the emerging generalized Gibbs ensemble will necessarily include negative chemical potentials and holographically will be described by a quasiclassical black hole with quantum soft hair.
A bstract We study the relative Rényi entropy (RRE) under local quenches in two-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs), focusing on rational CFTs (RCFTs) and holographic CFTs. In RCFTs, the RRE evolves as a monotonic function over time, depending on finite-dimensional matrices. It is sometimes symmetric, prompting an investigation into its relationship with the squared trace distance. We also observe that relative entropy can fail to distinguish between operators, as it only captures information entering/exiting the subsystem. In holographic CFTs, an analytic continuation of the RRE reveals insights into the entanglement wedge, offering a new perspective on bulk geometry in AdS/CFT. Our results deepen the understanding of quantum information measures in RCFTs and holographic CFTs, highlighting connections to distinguishability and bulk reconstruction.