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arXiv:2609.38815

Relative entropy of entanglement and tripartite minimal surface

Takato Mori, Beni Yoshida

hep-thgr-qcmath-phquant-phSubmitted Sep 30, 2026• Announced Oct 1, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

We propose a holographic dual of the relative entropy of entanglement for a boundary tripartition $A:B:C$. Our proposal is that, at the leading order, \begin{align} E_R(ρ_{AB}) = \frac{1}{4G_N}\Big[\mathrm{Area}(Γ_{\min}) - \mathrm{Area}(γ_{AB})\Big] \notag \end{align} where $Γ_{\min}$ is the minimal bulk tripartition surface and $γ_{AB}$ is the minimal surface homologous to $AB$. For a general random tensor network, we prove the corresponding upper bound by constructing a separable state associated with $Γ_{\min}$ and evaluating its relative entropy. We also establish the matching lower bound rigorously for networks of one, two, and three Haar random tensors by bounding the maximal tripartite product-state overlap. In appropriate geometries, the minimal tripartition surface can form a nontrivial tri-junction resembling the Mercedes logo. The proof proceeds by sequential optimization over candidate product states, which has a natural geometric interpretation as a local search for the minimal tripartition surface.

Comments
53 pages, many figures

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We propose a holographic dual of the relative entropy of entanglement for a boundary tripartition A:B:CA:B:CA:B:C. Our proposal is that, at the leading order, \begin{align} E_R(ρ_{AB}) = \frac{1}{4G_N}\Big[\mathrm{Area}(Γ_{\min}) - \mathrm{Area}(γ_{AB})\Big] \notag \end{align} where Γmin⁡Γ_{\min}Γmin​ is the minimal bulk tripartition surface and γABγ_{AB}γAB​ is the minimal surface homologous to ABABAB. For a general random tensor network, we prove the corresponding upper bound by constructing a separable state associated with Γmin⁡Γ_{\min}Γmin​ and evaluating its relative entropy. We also establish the matching lower bound rigorously for networks of one, two, and three Haar random tensors by bounding the maximal tripartite product-state overlap. In appropriate geometries, the minimal tripartition surface can form a nontrivial tri-junction resembling the Mercedes logo. The proof proceeds by sequential optimization over candidate product states, which has a natural geometric interpretation as a local search for the minimal tripartition surface.
Tensor networks provide a natural framework for exploring holographic duality because they obey entanglement area laws. They have been used to construct explicit toy models realizing many of the interesting structural features of the AdS/CFT correspondence, including the non-uniqueness of bulk operator reconstruction in the boundary theory. In this article, we explore the holographic properties of networks of random tensors. We find that our models naturally incorporate many features that are analogous to those of the AdS/CFT correspondence. When the bond dimension of the tensors is large, we show that the entanglement entropy of all boundary regions, whether connected or not, obey the Ryu-Takayanagi entropy formula, a fact closely related to known properties of the multipartite entanglement of assistance. We also discuss the behavior of Rényi entropies in our models and contrast it with AdS/CFT. Moreover, we find that each boundary region faithfully encodes the physics of the entire bulk entanglement wedge, i.e., the bulk region enclosed by the boundary region and the minimal surface. Our method is to interpret the average over random tensors as the partition function of a classical ferromagnetic Ising model, so that the minimal surfaces of Ryu-Takayanagi appear as domain walls. Upon including the analog of a bulk field, we find that our model reproduces the expected corrections to the Ryu-Takayanagi formula: the bulk minimal surface is displaced and the entropy is augmented by the entanglement of the bulk field. Increasing the entanglement of the bulk field ultimately changes the minimal surface behavior topologically, in a way similar to the effect of creating a black hole. Extrapolating bulk correlation functions to the boundary permits the calculation of the scaling dimensions of boundary operators, which exhibit a large gap between a small number of low-dimension operators and the rest. While we are primarily motivated by the AdS/CFT duality, the main results of the article define a more general form of bulk-boundary correspondence which could be useful for extending holography to other spacetimes.
A bstract For general random tensor network states at large bond dimension, we prove that the integer Rényi reflected entropies (away from phase transitions) are determined by minimal triway cuts through the network. This generalizes the minimal cut description of bipartite entanglement for these states. A natural extrapolation away from integer Rényi parameters, suggested by the triway cut problem, implies the holographic conjecture S R = 2EW, where S R is the reflected entropy and EW is the entanglement wedge cross-section. Minimal triway cuts can be formulated as integer programs which cannot be relaxed to find a dual maximal flow/bit-thread description. This sheds light on the gap between the existence of tripartite entanglement in holographic states and the bipartite entanglement structure motivated by bit-threads. In particular, we prove that the Markov gap that measures tripartite entanglement is lower bounded by the integrality gap of the integer program that computes the triway cut.
We explore ways to quantify multipartite correlations, in quantum information and in holography. We focus on optimized correlation measures, linear combinations of entropies minimized over all possible purifications of a state that satisfy monotonicity conditions. These contain far more information about correlations than entanglement entropy alone. We present a procedure to derive such quantities and construct a menagerie of symmetric optimized correlation measures on three parties. These include tripartite generalizations of the entanglement of purification, the squashed entanglement, and the recently introduced QQQ correlation and RRR correlation. Some correlation measures vanish only on product states and, thus, quantify both classical and quantum correlations; others vanish on any separable state, capturing quantum correlations alone. We then use a procedure motivated by the surface-state correspondence to construct holographic duals for the correlation measures as linear combinations of bulk surfaces. The geometry of the surfaces can preserve, partially break, or fully break the symmetry of the correlation measure. The optimal purification is encoded in the locations of certain points, whose locations are fixed by constraints on the areas of combinations of surfaces. This gives a new concrete connection between information theoretic quantities evaluated on a boundary state and detailed geometric properties of its dual.
For general random tensor network states at large bond dimension, we prove that the integer Rényi reflected entropies (away from phase transitions) are determined by minimal triway cuts through the network. This generalizes the minimal cut description of bipartite entanglement for these states. A natural extrapolation away from integer Rényi parameters, suggested by the triway cut problem, implies the holographic conjecture SR=2EWS_R=2EWSR​=2EW, where SRS_RSR​ is the reflected entropy and EWEWEW is the entanglement wedge cross-section. Minimal triway cuts can be formulated as integer programs which cannot be relaxed to find a dual maximal flow/bit-thread description. This sheds light on the gap between the existence of tripartite entanglement in holographic states and the bipartite entanglement structure motivated by bit-threads. In particular, we prove that the Markov gap that measures tripartite entanglement is lower bounded by the integrality gap of the integer program that computes the triway cut.
We determine the relative entropy of entanglement of a bipartite mixed state ρABρ_{AB}ρAB​ obtained by tracing out one subsystem of a tripartite Haar-random pure state ∣ψ⟩ABC|ψ\rangle_{ABC}∣ψ⟩ABC​, finding ER(ρAB)=log⁡dAdBmax⁡(dA,dB,dC)+O(1)E_R(ρ_{AB})=\log\frac{d_Ad_B}{\max(d_A,d_B,d_C)}+O(1)ER​(ρAB​)=logmax(dA​,dB​,dC​)dA​dB​​+O(1). Equivalently, the relative entropy of entanglement nearly saturates the smaller of the entanglement of formation EF(ρAB)E_F(ρ_{AB})EF​(ρAB​) and the mutual information I(A:B)I(A:B)I(A:B). The upper bound is achieved by an explicit separable state obtained through one-sided Schmidt dephasing, which is therefore approximately closest.
In this Dissertation, different aspects of holographic entanglement entropy are explored. In quantum information theory, entanglement is a useful resource needed to perform quantum operations. Entanglement entropy quantifies this resource and even if computable in quantum field theories, it is quite hard to calculate explicitly. However, in the context of gauge/gravity duality, (holographic) entanglement entropy was proposed by Ryu and Takayanagi (RT) to be captured by the area of a minimal surface in Anti DeSitter (AdS) space, which is extremely simple to compute. We begin by using the holographic dictionary to derive the RT formula. This is done by first considering smooth bulk geometries which are dual to n copies of the boundary geometry glued in a particular way. The action of these geometries computes the Renyi entropies S_n for any integer n. We give a prescription to analytically continue the action to non-integer n and argue that, as n goes to 1,S_1, the entanglement entropy, is given by the area of a minimal surface, reproducing the RT conjecture. That is, we reduced the RT proposal to the equality between bulk and boundary partition functions, a standard entry in the dictionary. We then generalize the previous formalism to account for corrections due to bulk quantum fields (1/N corrections in the boundary). This allows us to derive a new formula: boundary entanglement entropy is given by the area of the minimal surface plus bulk entanglement entropy. This extends RT beyond the planar limit and we present several predictions of the proposal. Our exploration of holographic entanglement entropy continues by considering different states: by comparing the quantum corrected entropy for nearby states we obtain the modular hamiltonian operator in bulk perturbation theory. From this expression of the modular hamiltonian, we derive that relative entropy is bulk relative entropy and that the modular flow is the bulk modular flow.