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At least 109 records · Page 6

Analyticity of replica correlators and modular ETH

We study the two point correlation function of a local operator on an n -sheeted replica manifold corresponding to the half-space in the vacuum state of a conformal field theory. In analogy with the inverse Laplace transform, we define the Renyi transform of this correlation function, which is a function of one complex variable w, dual to the Renyi parameter n . Inspired by the inversion formula of Caron-Huot, we argue that if the Renyi transform ƒ(w) has bounded behavior at infinity in the complex w plane, the discontinuity of the Renyi transform disc ƒ(w) provides the unique analytic continuation in n of the original replica correlation function. We check our formula by explicitly calculating the Renyi transform of a particular replica correlator in a large N holographic CFT d in dimensions d > 2. We also discover that the discontinuity of the Renyi transform is related to the matrix element of local operators between two distinct eigenstates of the modular Hamiltonian. We calculate the Renyi transform in 2 d conformal field theories, and use it to extract the off-diagonal elements of (modular) ETH. We argue that in 2 d , this is equivalent to the off-diagonal OPE coefficients of a CFT and show that our technique exactly reproduces recent results in the literature.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Large-d phase transitions in holographic mutual information

In the AdS/CFT correspondence, the entanglement entropy of subregions in the boundary CFT is conjectured to be dual to the area of a bulk extremal surface at leading order in G N in the holographic limit. Under this dictionary, distantly separated regions in the CFT vacuum state have zero mutual information at leading order, and only attain nonzero mutual information at this order when they lie close enough to develop significant classical and quantum correlations. Previously, the separation at which this phase transition occurs for equal-size ball-shaped regions centered at antipodal points on the boundary was known analytically only in 3 spacetime dimensions. Inspired by recent explorations of general relativity at large- d , we compute the separation at which the phase transition occurs analytically in the limit of infinitely many spacetime dimensions, and find that distant regions cannot develop large correlations without collectively occupying the entire volume of the boundary theory. We interpret this result as illustrating the spatial decoupling of holographic correlations in the large- d limit, and provide intuition for this phenomenon using results from quantum information theory. We also compute the phase transition separation numerically for a range of bulk spacetime dimensions from 4 to 21, where analytic results are intractable but numerical results provide insight into the dimension-dependence of holographic correlations. For bulk dimensions above 5, our exact numerical results are well approximated analytically by working to next-to-leading order in the large- d expansion.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Entanglement and topology in RG flows across dimensions: caps, bridges and corners

We quantitatively address the following question: for a QFT which is partially compactified, so as to realize an RG flow from a D-dimensional CFT in the UV to a d-dimensional CFT in the IR, how does the entanglement entropy of a small spherical region probing the UV physics evolve as the size of the region grows to increasingly probe IR physics? This entails a generalization of spherical regions to setups without full Lorentz symmetry, and we study the associated entanglement entropies holographically. We find a tight interplay between the topology and geometry of the compact space and the evolution of the entanglement entropy, with universal transitions from ‘cap’ through ‘bridge’ and ‘corner’ phases, whose features reflect the details of the compact space. As concrete examples we discuss twisted compactifications of 4d $\mathcal{N}$ = 4 SYM on T 2 , S 2 and hyperbolic Riemann surfaces.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Shift Symmetries and AdS/CFT

Massive fields on anti-de Sitter (AdS) space enjoy galileon-like shift symmetries at particular values of their masses. We explore how these shift symmetries are realized through the boundary conformal field theory (CFT), at the level of the 2-point functions. In the alternate quantization scheme in which the dual conformal field gets the smaller Δ - conformal dimension, the shift symmetry is realized as a gauge symmetry in the dual CFT, so that only shift invariant operators are true conformal primary fields. In the standard quantization scheme the shift symmetry acts on the source, leading to Ward identities that take the form of integral constraints.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

A Celestial route to AdS bulk locality

We prove a precise form of AdS bulk locality by deriving analytical two-sided bounds on bulk Wilson coefficients. Our bounds are on the Wilson coefficients themselves, rather than their ratios, as is typically found in the literature. Inspired by the Celestial amplitudes program in flat space, we perform a Celestial transform of the CFT Mellin amplitude of four identical scalars. Using the crossing symmetric dispersion relation (CSDR), we express the resulting amplitude in terms of crossing symmetric conformal partial waves. The partial waves satisy remarkable positivity properties which along with the unitarity of the CFT prove sufficient to derive the bounds. We then employ our methods in the limit of large AdS radius and recover known bounds on flat space Wilson coefficients and new bounds on their large radius corrections. We check that the planar Mellin amplitude of four stress-tensor multiplets in $\mathcal{N}$ = 4 SYM satisfies our bounds. Finally, using null constraints, we derive a form of low-spin dominance in AdS EFTs. We find that the low-spin dominance is strongest in flat space and weakens as we move away from flat space towards higher AdS curvature.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Celestial geometry

Celestial holography expresses S-matrix elements as correlators in a CFT living on the night sky. Poincaré invariance imposes additional selection rules on the allowed positions of operators. As a consequence, n-point correlators are only supported on certain patches of the celestial sphere, depending on the labeling of each operator as incoming/outgoing. Here we initiate a study of the celestial geometry, examining the kinematic support of celestial amplitudes for different crossing channels. We give simple geometric rules for determining this support. For n ≥ 5, we can view these channels as tiling together to form a covering of the celestial sphere. Our analysis serves as a stepping off point to better understand the analyticity of celestial correlators and illuminate the connection between the 4D kinematic and 2D CFT notions of crossing symmetry.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

AdS 3 orbifolds, BTZ black holes, and holography

Conical defects of the form (AdS 3 × S 3 )/Z k have an exact orbifold description in worldsheet string theory, which we derive from their known presentation as gauged Wess-Zumino-Witten models. The configuration of strings and fivebranes sourcing this geometry is well-understood, as is the correspondence to states/operators in the dual CFT 2 . One can analytically continue the construction to Euclidean AdS 3 (i.e. the hyperbolic ball $H$$^{+}_{3}$) and consider the orbifold by any infinite discrete (Kleinian) group generated by a set of elliptic elements γi ϵ SL(2, C), $γ$$^{ki}_{i}$ = 1, i = 1, . . . , K. The resulting geometry consists of multiple conical defects traveling along geodesics in $H$$^{+}_{3}$, and provides a semiclassical bulk description of correlation functions in the dual CFT involving the corresponding defect operators, which is nonperturbatively exact in α'. The Lorentzian continuation of these geometries describes a collection of defects colliding to make a BTZ black hole. We comment on a recent proposal to use such correlators to prepare a basis of black hole microstates, and elaborate on a picture of black hole formation and evaporation in terms of the underlying brane dynamics in the bulk.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Simple holography in general spacetimes

The simple or “outermost” wedge in AdS is the portion of the entanglement wedge that can be reconstructed with sub-exponential effort from CFT data. Here we furnish a definition in arbitrary spacetimes: given an input wedge a analogous to a CFT boundary region, the simple wedge z(a) is the largest wedge accessible by a “zigzag,” a certain sequence of antinormal lightsheets. We show that z(a) is a throat, and that it is contained in every other throat. This implies that z(a) is unique; that it is contained in the generalized entanglement wedge; and that it reduces to the AdS prescription as a special case. The zigzag explicitly constructs a preferred Cauchy slice that renders the simple wedge accessible from a; thus it adds a novel structure even in AdS. So far, no spacelike construction is known to reproduce these results, even in time-symmetric settings. This may have implications for the modeling of holographic encoding by tensor networks.

AdS-CFT Correspondence↗

Open-closed 3d gravity as a random ensemble

We investigate an ensemble of boundary CFTs within the framework of a tensor model recently constructed to model 3d quantum gravity. The incorporation of CFT borders introduces new elements to the gravity theory. In particular, it leads to an open-closed extension of Virasoro TQFT, which in the classical limit gives rise to 3d gravity with tensionful end-of-the-world branes. It also provides predictions for off-shell manifolds with bordered asymptotic boundaries, such as the annulus wormhole. As an application, we construct a purely open variant of the tensor model to study a purely open bootstrap problem in the context of CFT triangulation. We also briefly discuss the extension to non-orientable CFTs.

AdS-CFT correspondence↗

Bootstrapping quantum extremal surfaces. Part I. The area operator

Quantum extremal surfaces are central to the connection between quantum information theory and quantum gravity and they have played a prominent role in the recent progress on the information paradox. We initiate a program to systematically link these surfaces to the microscopic data of the dual conformal field theory, namely the scaling dimensions of local operators and their OPE coefficients. We consider CFT states obtained by acting on the vacuum with single-trace operators, which are dual to one-particle states of the bulk theory. Focusing on AdS 3 /CFT 2 , we compute the CFT entanglement entropy to second order in the large c expansion where quantum extremality becomes important and match it to the expectation value of the bulk area operator. We show that to this order, the Virasoro identity block contributes solely to the area operator.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

From microscopic black hole entropy toward Hawking radiationc

The AdS/CFT correspondence has recently provided a novel approach for counting the microstates of black holes impressively matching the macroscopic Bekenstein–Hawking entropy formula of rotating electrically charged asymptotically AdS black holes in four to seven dimensions. This approach is designed for supersymmetric extremal black holes, but can also be extended to nonsupersymmetric, near-extremal black holes. Besides the dual higher-dimensional boundary CFT, an effective 2D CFT emerges in a certain near-horizon limit accounting for both the extremal and the near-extremal black hole entropies. Furthermore, this effective 2D description is universal across dimensions and comes naturally equipped with an approach to quantitatively tackle aspects of Hawking radiation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Bra-ket wormholes in gravitationally prepared states

We consider two dimensional CFT states that are produced by a gravitational path integral. As a first case, we consider a state produced by Euclidean AdS2 evolution followed by flat space evolution. We use the fine grained entropy formula to explore the nature of the state. We find that the naive hyperbolic space geometry leads to a paradox. This is solved if we include a geometry that connects the bra with the ket, a bra-ket wormhole. The semiclassical Lorentzian interpretation leads to CFT state entangled with an expanding and collapsing Friedmann cosmology.

2D Gravity↗

Islands in de Sitter space

We consider black holes in 2d de Sitter JT gravity coupled to a CFT, and entangled with matter in a disjoint non-gravitating universe. Tracing out the entangling matter leaves the CFT in a density matrix whose stress tensor backreacts on the de Sitter geometry, lengthening the wormhole behind the black hole horizon. Naively, the entropy of the entangling matter increases without bound as the strength of the entanglement increases, but the monogamy property predicts that this growth must level off. We compute the entropy via the replica trick, including wormholes between the replica copies of the de Sitter geometry, and find a competition between conventional field theory entanglement entropy and the surface area of extremal “islands” in the de Sitter geometry. The black hole and cosmological horizons both play a role in generating such islands in the backreacted geometry, and have the effect of stabilizing the entropy growth as required by monogamy. We first show this in a scenario in which the de Sitter spatial section has been decompactified to an interval. Then we consider the compact geometry, and argue for a novel interpretation of the island formula in the context of closed universes that recovers the Page curve. Finally, we comment on the application of our construction to the cosmological horizon in empty de Sitter space.

2D gravity↗

Unitarity methods in AdS/CFT

We develop a systematic unitarity method for loop-level AdS scattering amplitudes, dual to non-planar CFT correlators, from both bulk and boundary perspectives. We identify cut operators acting on bulk amplitudes that put virtual lines on shell, and show how the conformal partial wave decomposition of the amplitudes may be efficiently computed by gluing lower-loop amplitudes. A central role is played by the double discontinuity of the amplitude, which has a direct relation to these cuts. We then exhibit a precise, intuitive map between the diagrammatic approach in the bulk using cutting and gluing, and the algebraic, holographic unitarity method of [1] that constructs the non-planar correlator from planar CFT data. Our analysis focuses mostly on four-point, one-loop diagrams — we compute cuts of the scalar bubble, triangle and box, as well as some one-particle reducible diagrams — in addition to the five-point tree and four-point double-ladder. Analogies with S-matrix unitarity methods are drawn throughout.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Global aspects of conformal symmetry and the ANEC in dS and AdS

Starting from the averaged null energy condition (ANEC) in Minkowski we show that conformal symmetry implies the ANEC for a conformal field theory (CFT) in a de Sitter and anti-de Sitter background. A similar and novel bound is also obtained for a CFT in the Lorentzian cylinder. Using monotonicity of relative entropy, we rederive these results for dS and the cylinder. As a byproduct we obtain the vacuum modular Hamiltonian and entanglement entropy associated to null deformed regions of CFTs in (A)dS and the cylinder. A third derivation of the ANEC in dS is shown to follow from bulk causality in AdS/CFT. Finally, we use the Tomita-Takesaki theory to show that Rindler positivity of Minkowski correlators generalizes to conformal theories defined in dS and the cylinder.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Conformal freeze-in, composite dark photon, and asymmetric reheating

Large classes of dark sector models feature mass scales and couplings very different from the ones we observe in the Standard Model (SM). Moreover, in the freeze-in mechanism, often employed by the dark sector models, it is also required that the dark sector cannot be populated during the reheating process like the SM. This is the so called asymmetric reheating. Such disparities in sizes and scales often call for dynamical explanations. In this paper, we explore a scenario in which slow evolving conformal field theories (CFTs) offer such an explanation. Building on the recent work on conformal freeze-in (COFI), we focus on a coupling between the Standard Model Hypercharge gauge boson and an anti-symmetric tensor operator in the dark CFT. We present a scenario which dynamically realizes the asymmetric reheating and COFI production. With a detailed study of dark matter production, and taking into account limits on the dark matter (DM) self-interaction, warm DM bound, and constraints from the stellar evolution, we demonstrate that the correct relic abundance can be obtained with reasonable choices of parameters. The model predicts the existence of a dark photon as an emergent composite particle, with a small kinetic mixing also determined by the CFT dynamics, which correlates it with the generation of the mass scale of the dark sector. At the same time, COFI production of dark matter is very different from those freeze-in mediated by the dark photon. This is an example of the physics in which a realistic dark sector model can often be much richer and with unexpected features.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Bootstrapping smooth conformal defects in Chern-Simons-matter theories

Abstract The expectation value of a smooth conformal line defect in a CFT is a conformal invariant functional of its path in space-time. For example, in largeNholographic theories, these fundamental observables are dual to the open-string partition function in AdS. In this paper, we develop a bootstrap method for studying them and apply it to conformal line defects in Chern-Simons matter theories. In these cases, the line bootstrap is based on three minimal assumptions — conformal invariance of the line defect, largeNfactorization, and the spectrum of the two lowest-lying operators at the end of the line. On the basis of these assumptions, we solve the one-dimensional CFT on the line and systematically compute the defect expectation value in an expansion around the straight line. We find that the conformal symmetry of a straight defect is insufficient to fix the answer. Instead, imposing the conformal symmetry of the defect along an arbitrary curved line leads to a functional bootstrap constraint. The solution to this constraint is found to be unique.

Physics↗

Transverse spin in the light-ray OPE

We study a product of null-integrated local operators O 1 and O 2 on the same null plane in a CFT. Such null-integrated operators transform like primaries in a fictitious d – 2 dimensional CFT in the directions transverse to the null integrals. We give a complete description of the OPE in these transverse directions. The terms with low transverse spin are light-ray operators with spin J 1 + J 2 – 1. The terms with higher transverse spin are primary descendants of light-ray operators with higher spins J 1 + J 2 – 1 + n, constructed using special conformally-invariant differential operators that appear precisely in the kinematics of the light-ray OPE. As an example, the OPE between average null energy operators contains light-ray operators with spin 3 (as described by Hofman and Maldacena), but also novel terms with spin 5, 7, 9, etc. These new terms are important for describing energy two-point correlators in non-rotationally-symmetric states, and for computing multi-point energy correlators. We check our formulas in a non-rotationally-symmetric energy correlator in N = 4 SYM, finding perfect agreement.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗