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arXiv:2607.14012

Temporal Entanglement from Twist Correlators in 2d Conformal Field Theory and Holography

Alice Bernamonti, Federico Galli, Michal P. Heller, Fabio Ori, Alexandre Serantes

hep-thcond-mat.stat-mechgr-qcquant-phSubmitted Jul 15, 2026• Announced Jul 16, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

We formulate timelike entanglement entropy and its Rényi extension in two-dimensional conformal field theory through the analytic continuation of replica twist correlators to time-ordered, timelike-separated insertions. This field-theoretic construction grounds and generalizes recent developments, and applies to temporal subregions of arbitrary extent. Within three-dimensional holography, the semiclassical boundary correlator identifies boundary-anchored complex geodesics as the relevant bulk saddles and selects the one with the smallest real part of the length. This provides a direct boundary derivation of the proposed complex extremal surface prescription and extends to Rényi index $n>1$, for which we explicitly construct the corresponding complex cosmic brane geometry in the vacuum. We develop these ideas in several representative settings, including locally and globally excited states and quantum operator quenches, making manifest the precise agreement between boundary twist correlator and bulk complex geodesic calculations. For AdS-Vaidya, our approach predicts a different result from earlier piecewise geodesic constructions, while reproducing the field theory answer. Across these examples, the operator ordering uniquely determines the imaginary part of the complex-valued entropy, which is quantized in units of $cπ/6$ and sensitive to the effective causal structure but not to the underlying dynamics.

Comments
42 pages + appendices, 5+6 figures

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We formulate timelike entanglement entropy and its Rényi extension in two-dimensional conformal field theory through the analytic continuation of replica twist correlators to time-ordered, timelike-separated insertions. This field-theoretic construction grounds and generalizes recent developments, and applies to temporal subregions of arbitrary extent. Within three-dimensional holography, the semiclassical boundary correlator identifies boundary-anchored complex geodesics as the relevant bulk saddles and selects the one with the smallest real part of the length. This provides a direct boundary derivation of the proposed complex extremal surface prescription and extends to Rényi index n>1n>1n>1, for which we explicitly construct the corresponding complex cosmic brane geometry in the vacuum. We develop these ideas in several representative settings, including locally and globally excited states and quantum operator quenches, making manifest the precise agreement between boundary twist correlator and bulk complex geodesic calculations. For AdS-Vaidya, our approach predicts a different result from earlier piecewise geodesic constructions, while reproducing the field theory answer. Across these examples, the operator ordering uniquely determines the imaginary part of the complex-valued entropy, which is quantized in units of cπ/6cπ/6cπ/6 and sensitive to the effective causal structure but not to the underlying dynamics.
Recently, several notions of entanglement in time have emerged as a novel frontier in quantum many-body physics, quantum field theory, and gravity. We propose a systematic prescription to characterize temporal entanglement in relativistic quantum field theory in a general state for an arbitrary subregion on a flat, constant time slice in a flat spacetime. Our prescription starts with the standard entanglement entropy of a spatial subregion and amounts to transporting the unchanged subregion to boosted time slices all the way across the light cone when it becomes, in general, a complex characterization of the corresponding temporal subregion. For holographic quantum field theories, our prescription amounts to an analytic continuation of all codimension-two bulk extremal surfaces satisfying the homology constraint and picking the one with the smallest real value of the area as the leading saddle point. We implement this prescription for holographic conformal field theories in thermal states on both a two-dimensional Lorentzian cylinder and three-dimensional Minkowski space, and we show that it leads to results with self-consistent physical properties of temporal entanglement.
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We develop a unified framework for computing Rényi and entanglement entropies of arbitrary spacetime intervals in time-dependent states of (1+1)(1+1)(1+1)-dimensional conformal field theories. By combining the spacetime density matrix formalism with the replica method, we show that entanglement entropy is well defined for both spacelike and timelike separations. Applying this framework to global quenches prepared by boundary states and to local quenches generated by operator insertions, we obtain analytic expressions for the entanglement entropy in general spacetime configurations. The results reveal qualitative differences between spacelike and timelike intervals: the timelike entanglement entropy is time-independent in the global quench model, depends solely on the temporal separation, and universally exhibits a constant imaginary contribution. These features are naturally explained by a generalized quasiparticle picture in which entanglement is produced precisely when one worldline of each quasiparticle pair intersects the interval. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the linear sum rule relating time- and spacelike entanglement persists in both global and local quenches, indicating a broader universality of spacetime entanglement in real-time quantum dynamics.
We study holographic entanglement entropy in 3-dimensional AdS gravity with conformal boundary conditions which fix the conformal class of the boundary metric and its extrinsic curvature, KKK, while leaving the Weyl mode dynamical. Extending Lewkowycz-Maldacena-Dong's replica construction, we derive the corresponding holographic entanglement entropy formula. We show that the fluctuating Weyl mode does not contribute additional entropy. The entropy of the full boundary is therefore the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, and the entropy of a boundary subregion continues to obey the Ryu-Takayanagi prescription, namely, the area of a minimal surface divided by 4GN4G_N4GN​. We carry out explicit calculations for global AdS, rotating and non-rotating BTZ geometries. For an interval in AdS3_33​ we find that the KKK-dependent holographic entanglement entropy is governed by cm=3ℓ2GN.c_m=\frac{3 \ell}{2 G_N}.cm​=2GN​3ℓ​. For a thermal state at high conformal temperatures we find that, the entropy is governed by ceff=3ℓ2GNKℓ−K2ℓ2−42c_{\rm eff}=\frac{3 \ell}{2 G_N} \frac{K \ell- \sqrt{K^2 \ell^2-4}}{2}ceff​=2GN​3ℓ​2Kℓ−K2ℓ2−4​​, the same effective central charge that governs the Cardy-like density of states, in agreement with previous results in the literature. Finally, we also compute the entanglement entropy directly from the conjectured dual boundary theory - a holographic CFT coupled with time-like Liouville theory and deformed by a marginal TTˉT \bar{T}TTˉ like operator - and find SEE=ceff3ln⁡ ⁣(2Rsin⁡ϕ0ε).S_{EE} =\frac{c_{\rm eff}}{3} \ln\!\left(\frac{2 R \sinϕ_0}ε\right) .SEE​=3ceff​​ln(ε2Rsinϕ0​​). This result for the state with no operator insertions (vacuum state ), provides an independent boundary realization of ceffc_{\mathrm{eff}}ceff​ while clarifying that this state is not the state dual to global AdS.
Entanglement entropy in holographic conformal field theories with boundaries of generic spacetime signature cannot be described entirely within the standard holographic duality to a real bulk spacetime. We show, both in static and time-dependent setups, that an exact match with the conformal field theory predictions in two boundary dimensions entails an extension of the dual spacetime to complex coordinates. As a consequence, relevant bulk objects such as Ryu-Takayanagi surfaces and branes are in general complex, yet anchored on a real asymptotic boundary preserving the physical meaning of field-theoretical quantities. We also provide a third numerical check of the holographic prediction with a two-dimensional system of free Gaussian fermions exhibiting the same asymptotic regimes across different entanglement phases.
In this paper, we investigate entanglement for causally connected subregions A and B in quantum field theory and holography. Recent developments have established that a transition operator T A B can be well-defined for such subregions, which is generally non-Hermitian. By employing the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism and the real-time replica method, we show how to construct T A B and compute associated entanglement measures. In certain configurations, this leads to a notion of timelike entanglement entropy, for which we provide explicit quantum field theory computations and propose a holographic dual via analytic continuation from the Euclidean setup. Both analytical and numerical results are compared and found consistent. If entanglement between causally connected subregions is to be meaningful, it should admit well-defined extensions of other entanglement measures beyond the spacelike setting. With this motivation we study the analytic continuation of the twist correlators for reflected-entropy and propose a holographic geometric analog in complexified bulk geometry, providing evidence that entanglement measures can be extended to timelike regions.