Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

International Journal of Modern Physics A

Holographic entanglement, pseudo-entropy and wormholes

Taishi Kawamoto, Ryota Maeda, Nanami Nakamura, Tadashi Takayanagi

Published Oct 24, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

The idea of holographic duality in string theory provides a simple geometric computation of entanglement entropy. This generalizes the celebrated Bekenstein–Hawking formula of black hole entropy and strongly suggests that a gravitational space–time consists of many qubits with quantum entanglement. Recently, a new extension of entanglement entropy, called pseudo-entropy, which depends on both an initial and a final state, was introduced. This quantity turned out to have a clear geometric dual via the holography and also plays a role of a new order parameter of quantum phases. In this paper, we would like to point out that pseudo-entropy becomes a useful probe in traversable wormhole geometries, where non-Hermitian density matrices naturally appear in their CFT duals following the paper in Ref. 1 .

DOI
10.1142/s0217751x25480057

Related papers

New holographic generalization of entanglement entropy

Yoshifumi Nakata, Tadashi Takayanagi, Yusuke Taki +2 more

We introduce a new quantity, called pseudo-entropy, as a generalization of entanglement entropy via postselection. We expect this quantity to provide a new class of order parameters in quantum many-body systems. In the anti--de Sitter space (AdS)/conformal field theory (CFT) correspondence, this quantity is dual to areas of minimal area surfaces in time-dependent Euclidean spaces which are asymptotically AdS. We call this geometric computation of pseudo-entropy via the $\mathrm{AdS}/\mathrm{CFT}$ the holographic pseudo-entropy. We study its basic properties and classifications in qubit systems. In specific examples, we provide a quantum information theoretic meaning of this new quantity as an averaged number of Bell pairs when the post-selection is performed. We also present properties of the pseudo-entropy for random states. We then calculate the pseudo-entropy in the presence of local operator excitations for both the two dimensional free massless scalar CFT and two dimensional holographic CFTs. We find a general property in CFTs that the pseudo-entropy is highly reduced when the local operators get closer to the boundary of the subsystem. We also compute the holographic pseudo-entropy for a Janus solution, dual to an exactly marginal perturbation of a two dimensional CFT and find its agreement with a perturbative calculation in the dual CFT. We show the linearity property holds for holographic states, where the holographic pseudo-entropy coincides with a weak value of the area operator. Finally, we propose a mixed state generalization of pseudo-entropy and give its gravity dual.

arXiv:2005.13801•Physical review. D/Physical review. D.•Jan 11, 2021•126 citations

Quantum information in holographic duality

Bowen Chen, Bartłomiej Czech, Zi-zhi Wang

We give a pedagogical review of how concepts from quantum information theory build up the gravitational side of the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence. The review is self-contained in that it only presupposes knowledge of quantum mechanics and general relativity; other tools-including holographic duality itself-are introduced in the text. We have aimed to give researchers interested in entering this field a working knowledge sufficient for initiating original projects. The review begins with the laws of black hole thermodynamics, which form the basis of this subject, then introduces the Ryu-Takayanagi proposal, the Jafferis-Lewkowycz-Maldacena-Suh (JLMS) relation, and subregion duality. We discuss tensor networks as a visualization tool and analyze various network architectures in detail. Next, several modern concepts and techniques are discussed: Rényi entropies and the replica trick, differential entropy and kinematic space, modular Berry phases, modular minimal entropy, entanglement wedge cross-sections, bit threads, and others. We discuss the extent to which bulk geometries are fixed by boundary entanglement entropies, and analyze the relations such as the monogamy of mutual information, which boundary entanglement entropies must obey if a state has a semiclassical bulk dual. We close with a discussion of black holes, including holographic complexity, firewalls and the black hole information paradox, islands, and replica wormholes.

arXiv:2108.09188•Reports on Progress in Physics•Feb 3, 2022•88 citations

Entanglement, Complexity, and Holography

Mudassir Moosa

It was found, by studying black holes, that the compatibility of the theory of gravity and the laws of quantum mechanics demands that the universe must act like a hologram. That is, all the information inside a region of the universe should be encoded on a so-called holographic screen of one-lesser dimension. This is termed the holographic principle. In a generic spacetime, such as an expanding universe, holographic screens depend on the choice of an observer, which is consistent with the notion that the observer is part of the system in cosmology. In the first part of this dissertation, we study the observer-dependence of holographic screens. This will help us understand how the fundamental description of the universe depends on the choice of the observer. Furthermore, we study the dynamics of the holographic screens and their geometry in the first part of this dissertation.An example where the holographic principle is manifest is the AdS-CFT correspondence. This correspondence connects quantum information quantities, like entanglement and complexity, to geometric quantities, like area and volume, respectively. In the second and the third part of this dissertation, we use the AdS-CFT correspondence as a tool to calculate the entanglement entropy and the computational complexity of a quenched CFT state. Studying the time evolution of the entanglement entropy following a quantum quench teaches us how a CFT state thermalizes. On the other hand, studying the time evolution of the computational complexity allows us to check the validity of various recent conjectures involving black holes and complexity.

•Aug 18, 2018•0 citations

Aspects of the relation between the black hole entropy and the entanglement entropy.

Parul Jain

The relationship between Bekenstein-Hawking and entanglement entropy is one \nof the most intriguing problems of black hole and theoretical physics. Although both entropies have the same geometric characterization (they scale as an area), they have a different origin. The Bekenstein-Hawking entropy has it’s roots in the thermal correlations whereas the entanglement entropy describes the quantum correlations. In this thesis we address this problem from a holographic \nperspective, making large use of the AdS/CFT correspondence. \nWe first look at the BTZ black hole in which case the black hole horizon and \nthe conical singularity are related to each other. Using the modular transformations of the dual 2D CFT, we first obtain an expression of the holographicentanglement entropy for the Euclidean BTZ black hole, AdS3 vacua and conical singularity and then analyse the behaviour of the leading terms in the expansions of the holographic entanglement entropy for the BTZ black hole and the \nconical singularity. From these calculations, we have extracted the “signatures” through which entanglement entropy differentiates between the horizon and the conical singularity. When we deal with CFT at a finite temperature then it is well known that, entanglement entropy fails as a measure and hence it is replaced by entanglement negativity which is able to separate the thermal/classical \ncorrelations from the quantum correlations thereby capturing “distillable” entanglement. We address the problem of finding a suitable holographic prescription \nto calculate the entanglement negativity for two adjacent intervals when the CFT is at a finite temperature and in turn dual to a black hole in the bulk. We first propose a conjecture for the holographic entanglement negativity for two adjacent intervals in the \nAdS3/CFT2 setup and perform calculations in the \nvarious cases to support this conjecture. We further push forward the validity of this conjecture by calculating the holographic entanglement negativity for two \nadjacent subsystems when we have RN-AdS black holes in the bulk which in \nturn are dual to CFT with a conserved charge.

•Jan 24, 2019•0 citations

Strings and missing wormhole entanglement

Andrei T. Patrascu

I show that holographic calculations of entanglement entropy in the context of AdS bulk space modified by wormhole geometries provide the expected entanglement magnitude. This arises in the context of string theory by means of additional geometric structure that is seen by the string in its bulk evolution. The process can be described as a net entanglement flow towards stringy geometry. I make use of the fact that as opposed to quantum field theory, strings have additional winding mode states around small extra dimensions which modify the area computation given by the standard application of the Ryu-Takayanagi entanglement entropy formula.

arXiv:1803.06164•Mar 16, 2018•0 citations

Holographic entanglement entropy : structure and applications from noncommutative field theories to energy conditions

Charles Rabideau

The holographic Ryu-Takayanagi formula for entanglement entropy connects the entanglement of a field theory to the geometry of a dual gravitational theory in a straightforward and universal way. The first part of this thesis applies this formula to study the entanglement entropy in strongly coupled noncommutative field theories. It is found that the ground state of these theories have substantial entanglement at the length scale of the noncommutativity. The entanglement entropy in a different perturbative regime is also computed, where in contrast it is found that noncommutative interactions do not induce long range entanglement in the ground state to leading order in perturbations theory. The second part of this thesis explores some general consequences of this holographic formula for the entanglement entropy. Identities involving entanglement entropies are related to nontrivial geometric constraints on gravitational duals. In particular, the strong subadditivity of entanglement entropy is used to show that dual three dimensional asymptotically anti-de Sitter gravitational states must obey an averaged null energy condition. Finally, this holographic formula allows us at least in principle to express the entanglement entropy of a region in a holographic field theory in terms of the one-point functions in that theory. This is explored in the context of a two dimensional conformal field theory where explicit calculations are possible. Our results in this case allow us to extend a recent proposal that the entanglement entropy of states near the vacuum of conformal theories can be understood by propagation in an auxiliary de Sitter space.

•Jan 1, 2016•0 citations
The idea of holographic duality in string theory provides a simple geometric computation of entanglement entropy. This generalizes the celebrated Bekenstein–Hawking formula of black hole entropy and strongly suggests that a gravitational space–time consists of many qubits with quantum entanglement. Recently, a new extension of entanglement entropy, called pseudo-entropy, which depends on both an initial and a final state, was introduced. This quantity turned out to have a clear geometric dual via the holography and also plays a role of a new order parameter of quantum phases. In this paper, we would like to point out that pseudo-entropy becomes a useful probe in traversable wormhole geometries, where non-Hermitian density matrices naturally appear in their CFT duals following the paper in Ref. 1 .
We introduce a new quantity, called pseudo-entropy, as a generalization of entanglement entropy via postselection. We expect this quantity to provide a new class of order parameters in quantum many-body systems. In the anti--de Sitter space (AdS)/conformal field theory (CFT) correspondence, this quantity is dual to areas of minimal area surfaces in time-dependent Euclidean spaces which are asymptotically AdS. We call this geometric computation of pseudo-entropy via the AdS/CFT\mathrm{AdS}/\mathrm{CFT}AdS/CFT the holographic pseudo-entropy. We study its basic properties and classifications in qubit systems. In specific examples, we provide a quantum information theoretic meaning of this new quantity as an averaged number of Bell pairs when the post-selection is performed. We also present properties of the pseudo-entropy for random states. We then calculate the pseudo-entropy in the presence of local operator excitations for both the two dimensional free massless scalar CFT and two dimensional holographic CFTs. We find a general property in CFTs that the pseudo-entropy is highly reduced when the local operators get closer to the boundary of the subsystem. We also compute the holographic pseudo-entropy for a Janus solution, dual to an exactly marginal perturbation of a two dimensional CFT and find its agreement with a perturbative calculation in the dual CFT. We show the linearity property holds for holographic states, where the holographic pseudo-entropy coincides with a weak value of the area operator. Finally, we propose a mixed state generalization of pseudo-entropy and give its gravity dual.
We give a pedagogical review of how concepts from quantum information theory build up the gravitational side of the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence. The review is self-contained in that it only presupposes knowledge of quantum mechanics and general relativity; other tools-including holographic duality itself-are introduced in the text. We have aimed to give researchers interested in entering this field a working knowledge sufficient for initiating original projects. The review begins with the laws of black hole thermodynamics, which form the basis of this subject, then introduces the Ryu-Takayanagi proposal, the Jafferis-Lewkowycz-Maldacena-Suh (JLMS) relation, and subregion duality. We discuss tensor networks as a visualization tool and analyze various network architectures in detail. Next, several modern concepts and techniques are discussed: Rényi entropies and the replica trick, differential entropy and kinematic space, modular Berry phases, modular minimal entropy, entanglement wedge cross-sections, bit threads, and others. We discuss the extent to which bulk geometries are fixed by boundary entanglement entropies, and analyze the relations such as the monogamy of mutual information, which boundary entanglement entropies must obey if a state has a semiclassical bulk dual. We close with a discussion of black holes, including holographic complexity, firewalls and the black hole information paradox, islands, and replica wormholes.
It was found, by studying black holes, that the compatibility of the theory of gravity and the laws of quantum mechanics demands that the universe must act like a hologram. That is, all the information inside a region of the universe should be encoded on a so-called holographic screen of one-lesser dimension. This is termed the holographic principle. In a generic spacetime, such as an expanding universe, holographic screens depend on the choice of an observer, which is consistent with the notion that the observer is part of the system in cosmology. In the first part of this dissertation, we study the observer-dependence of holographic screens. This will help us understand how the fundamental description of the universe depends on the choice of the observer. Furthermore, we study the dynamics of the holographic screens and their geometry in the first part of this dissertation.An example where the holographic principle is manifest is the AdS-CFT correspondence. This correspondence connects quantum information quantities, like entanglement and complexity, to geometric quantities, like area and volume, respectively. In the second and the third part of this dissertation, we use the AdS-CFT correspondence as a tool to calculate the entanglement entropy and the computational complexity of a quenched CFT state. Studying the time evolution of the entanglement entropy following a quantum quench teaches us how a CFT state thermalizes. On the other hand, studying the time evolution of the computational complexity allows us to check the validity of various recent conjectures involving black holes and complexity.
The relationship between Bekenstein-Hawking and entanglement entropy is one \nof the most intriguing problems of black hole and theoretical physics. Although both entropies have the same geometric characterization (they scale as an area), they have a different origin. The Bekenstein-Hawking entropy has it’s roots in the thermal correlations whereas the entanglement entropy describes the quantum correlations. In this thesis we address this problem from a holographic \nperspective, making large use of the AdS/CFT correspondence. \nWe first look at the BTZ black hole in which case the black hole horizon and \nthe conical singularity are related to each other. Using the modular transformations of the dual 2D CFT, we first obtain an expression of the holographicentanglement entropy for the Euclidean BTZ black hole, AdS3 vacua and conical singularity and then analyse the behaviour of the leading terms in the expansions of the holographic entanglement entropy for the BTZ black hole and the \nconical singularity. From these calculations, we have extracted the “signatures” through which entanglement entropy differentiates between the horizon and the conical singularity. When we deal with CFT at a finite temperature then it is well known that, entanglement entropy fails as a measure and hence it is replaced by entanglement negativity which is able to separate the thermal/classical \ncorrelations from the quantum correlations thereby capturing “distillable” entanglement. We address the problem of finding a suitable holographic prescription \nto calculate the entanglement negativity for two adjacent intervals when the CFT is at a finite temperature and in turn dual to a black hole in the bulk. We first propose a conjecture for the holographic entanglement negativity for two adjacent intervals in the \nAdS3/CFT2 setup and perform calculations in the \nvarious cases to support this conjecture. We further push forward the validity of this conjecture by calculating the holographic entanglement negativity for two \nadjacent subsystems when we have RN-AdS black holes in the bulk which in \nturn are dual to CFT with a conserved charge.
I show that holographic calculations of entanglement entropy in the context of AdS bulk space modified by wormhole geometries provide the expected entanglement magnitude. This arises in the context of string theory by means of additional geometric structure that is seen by the string in its bulk evolution. The process can be described as a net entanglement flow towards stringy geometry. I make use of the fact that as opposed to quantum field theory, strings have additional winding mode states around small extra dimensions which modify the area computation given by the standard application of the Ryu-Takayanagi entanglement entropy formula.
The holographic Ryu-Takayanagi formula for entanglement entropy connects the entanglement of a field theory to the geometry of a dual gravitational theory in a straightforward and universal way. The first part of this thesis applies this formula to study the entanglement entropy in strongly coupled noncommutative field theories. It is found that the ground state of these theories have substantial entanglement at the length scale of the noncommutativity. The entanglement entropy in a different perturbative regime is also computed, where in contrast it is found that noncommutative interactions do not induce long range entanglement in the ground state to leading order in perturbations theory. The second part of this thesis explores some general consequences of this holographic formula for the entanglement entropy. Identities involving entanglement entropies are related to nontrivial geometric constraints on gravitational duals. In particular, the strong subadditivity of entanglement entropy is used to show that dual three dimensional asymptotically anti-de Sitter gravitational states must obey an averaged null energy condition. Finally, this holographic formula allows us at least in principle to express the entanglement entropy of a region in a holographic field theory in terms of the one-point functions in that theory. This is explored in the context of a two dimensional conformal field theory where explicit calculations are possible. Our results in this case allow us to extend a recent proposal that the entanglement entropy of states near the vacuum of conformal theories can be understood by propagation in an auxiliary de Sitter space.