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arXiv:2608.25783

PEE threads and bit threads in gravitational subregions of AdS

Debarshi Basu, Qiang Wen

Published Aug 26, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

Motivated by the kinematic-space description of gravitational subregions \cite{Basu:2026hbg}, we allow partial entanglement entropy (PEE) threads to be sourced not only from the asymptotic boundary, but also from boundaries of subregions. Based on this setup, we develop a framework to construct configurations for PEE threads and bit threads sourced from surfaces in the AdS bulk. The situations we have analyzed include the Poincaré AdS$_3$ and the planar BTZ black brane with an end-of-the-world (EOW) brane, and the entanglement wedges of boundary multi-intervals. We construct novel configurations of PEE threads and bit threads in these situations, which shed new light in our understanding of the AdS$_3$/BCFT$_2$ correspondence and the holography defined in the entanglement wedge motivated by surface/state correspondence. A notable feature we found is that, although the elementary PEE threads are geodesics, the integral curves of the coarse-grained bit-thread current are generically not geodesics. Across the explicit constructions, the integrated source currents reduce to endpoint distance-difference potentials, which make divergencelessness, the norm bound and bottleneck saturation geometrically transparent. Our results clarify how boundary, brane, horizon and RT-surface degrees of freedom participate in holographic entanglement and provide a concrete link between PEE, bit threads, subregion kinematic space and the surface/state correspondence.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2608.25783

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Motivated by the kinematic-space description of gravitational subregions \cite{Basu:2026hbg}, we allow partial entanglement entropy (PEE) threads to be sourced not only from the asymptotic boundary, but also from boundaries of subregions. Based on this setup, we develop a framework to construct configurations for PEE threads and bit threads sourced from surfaces in the AdS bulk. The situations we have analyzed include the Poincaré AdS3_33​ and the planar BTZ black brane with an end-of-the-world (EOW) brane, and the entanglement wedges of boundary multi-intervals. We construct novel configurations of PEE threads and bit threads in these situations, which shed new light in our understanding of the AdS3_33​/BCFT2_22​ correspondence and the holography defined in the entanglement wedge motivated by surface/state correspondence. A notable feature we found is that, although the elementary PEE threads are geodesics, the integral curves of the coarse-grained bit-thread current are generically not geodesics. Across the explicit constructions, the integrated source currents reduce to endpoint distance-difference potentials, which make divergencelessness, the norm bound and bottleneck saturation geometrically transparent. Our results clarify how boundary, brane, horizon and RT-surface degrees of freedom participate in holographic entanglement and provide a concrete link between PEE, bit threads, subregion kinematic space and the surface/state correspondence.
A bstract We give a scheme to geometrize the partial entanglement entropy (PEE) for holographic CFT in the context of AdS/CFT. More explicitly, given a point x we geometrize the two-point PEEs between x and any other points in terms of the bulk geodesics connecting these two points. We refer to these geodesics as the PEE threads , which can be naturally regarded as the integral curves of a divergenceless vector field Vxμ {V}_{\textbf{x}}^{\mu } Vxμ​ V x μ , which we call PEE thread flow . The norm of Vxμ {V}_{\textbf{x}}^{\mu } Vxμ​ V x μ that characterizes the density of the PEE threads can be determined by some physical requirements of the PEE. We show that, for any static interval or spherical region A , a unique bit thread configuration can be generated from the PEE thread configuration determined by the state. Hence, the non-intrinsic bit threads are emergent from the intrinsic PEE threads. For static disconnected intervals, the vector fields describing a divergenceless flow is no longer suitable to reproduce the RT formula. We weight a PEE thread with the number of times it intersects with any homologous surface. Instead, the RT formula is perfectly reformulated by the minimization of the summation of PEE threads with all possible assignment of weights.
In the context of the AdS/CFT, it was recently proposed that the boundary partial entanglement entropy structure can be represented by the so-called partial entanglement entropy (PEE) threads in the AdS bulk, which are bulk geodesics with the density determined by the boundary PEE structure [. and .]. In Poincaré anti–de Sitter (AdS) space, it was shown that the PEE threads cover the AdS space uniformly, such that the number of intersections between any bulk surface and the bulk PEE threads is always given by the area of the surface divided by 4 G . In this paper, we investigate the configurations of PEE threads when the boundary state is in the island phase. The island phase was studied in the context of the holographic Weyl transformed CFT 2 , which has been shown to capture all the main features of AdS/BCFT (Boundary Conformal Field Theory). Compared with AdS 3 / CFT 2 , in the island phase instead of modifying the distribution of the bulk PEE threads, we should replace the boundary points with the corresponding cutoff spheres. Then the two-point functions and the four-point functions of twist operators can be reproduced by identifying the bulk homologous surfaces anchored on the corresponding cutoff spheres that has the minimal number of intersections with the bulk PEE threads. This gives us a better understanding about the PEE structure in the island phase and reproduces the island formula for entanglement entropy by allowing homologous surfaces to anchor on any cutoff spheres. Furthermore, it gives a demonstration for the two basic proposals and a better understanding for the entanglement contribution that makes the foundation to compute the balanced partial entanglement entropy [.], which reproduces the entanglement wedge cross section in the island phase.
Abstract We study the partial entanglement entropy (PEE) aspects of the holographic BCFT setup with an entanglement island, inspired by the holographic triality of the AdS/BCFT setup developed in the recent study on the black hole information problem, and the “PEE=CFF (component flow flux)” prescription, which is proposed recently to investigate the holographic PEE in the framework of bit thread formulation. Our study provides a bit thread description of the AdS/BCFT setup, which characterizes the specific entanglement details between the different parts of the system with an entanglement island, and may provide further insight into the black hole information problem. Furthermore, we show that in the context of island, one should distinguish between the fine-grained PEE and the semi-classical PEE. Interestingly, similar to the island rule of the fine-grained entropy in the semi-classical picture, we also propose the island rules of the fine-grained PEE.
A bstract We revisit the recent reformulation of the holographic prescription to compute entanglement entropy in terms of a convex optimization problem, introduced by Freedman and Headrick. According to it, the holographic entanglement entropy associated to a boundary region is given by the maximum flux of a bounded, divergenceless vector field, through the corresponding region. Our work leads to two main results: (i) We present a general algorithm that allows the construction of explicit thread configurations in cases where the minimal surface is known. We illustrate the method with simple examples: spheres and strips in vacuum AdS, and strips in a black brane geometry. Studying more generic bulk metrics, we uncover a sufficient set of conditions on the geometry and matter fields that must hold to be able to use our prescription. (ii) Based on the nesting property of holographic entanglement entropy, we develop a method to construct bit threads that maximize the flux through a given bulk region. As a byproduct, we are able to construct more general thread configurations by combining (i) and (ii) in multiple patches. We apply our methods to study bit threads which simultaneously compute the entanglement entropy and the entanglement of purification of mixed states and comment on their interpretation in terms of entanglement distillation. We also consider the case of disjoint regions for which we can explicitly construct the so-called multi-commodity flows and show that the monogamy property of mutual information can be easily illustrated from our constructions.
A bstract The concept of the generalized entanglement wedge was recently proposed by Bousso and Penington, which states that any bulk gravitational region a possesses an associated generalized entanglement wedge E ( a ) ⊃ a on a static Cauchy surface M in general gravitational spacetimes, where E ( a ) may contain an entanglement island I ( a ). It suggests that the fine-grained entropy for bulk region a is given by the generalized entropy S gen ( E ( a )). Motivated by this proposal, we extend the quantum bit thread description to general gravitational spacetimes, no longer limited to the AdS spacetime. By utilizing the convex optimization techniques, a dual flow description for the generalized entropy S gen ( E ( a )) of a bulk gravitational region a is established on the static Cauchy surface M , such that S gen ( E ( a )) is equal to the maximum flux of any flow that starts from the boundary ∂M and ends at bulk region a , or equivalently, the maximum number of bit threads that connect the boundary ∂M to the bulk region a . In addition, the nesting property of flows is also proved. Thus the basic properties of the entropy for bulk regions, i.e. the monotonicity, subadditivity, Araki-Lieb inequality and strong subadditivity, can be verified from flow perspectives by using properties of flows, such as the nesting property. Moreover, in max thread configurations, we find that there exists some lower bounds on the bulk entanglement entropy of matter fields in the region E ( a ) \ a , particularly on an entanglement island region I ( a ) ⊂ ( E ( a ) \ a ), as required by the existence of a nontrivial generalized entanglement wedge. Our quantum bit thread formulation may provide a way to investigate more fine-grained entanglement structures in general spacetimes.
Holographic tensor networks serve as toy models for the Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence, capturing many of its essential features in a concrete manner. However, existing holographic tensor network models remain far from a complete theory of quantum gravity. A key obstacle is their discrete structure, which only approximates the semi-classical geometry of gravity in a qualitative sense. In \cite{Lin:2024dho}, it was shown that a network of partial-entanglement-entropy (PEE) threads, which are bulk geodesics with a specific density distribution, generates a perfect tessellation of AdS space. Moreover, such PEE-network tessellations can be constructed for more highly symmetric geometries using the Crofton formula. In this paper, we assign a quantum state to each vertex in the PEE network and develop several holographic tensor network models: (1) the factorized PEE tensor network, which takes the form of a tensor product of EPR pairs; (2) the HaPPY-like PEE tensor network constructed from perfect tensors; and (3) the random PEE tensor network. In all these models, we reproduce the exact Ryu-Takayanagi formula by showing that the minimal number of cuts along a homologous surface in the network exactly equals the area of that surface.