Holographic tensor networks model AdS/CFT, but so far they have been limited by involving only systems that are very different from gravity. Unfortunately, we cannot straightforwardly discretize gravity to incorporate it, because that would break diffeomorphism invariance. In this note, we explore a resolution. In low dimensions gravity can be written as a topological gauge theory, which can be discretized without breaking gauge-invariance. However, new problems arise. Foremost, we now need a qualitatively new kind of “area operator,” which has no relation to the number of links along the cut and is instead topological. Secondly, the inclusion of matter becomes trickier. We successfully construct a tensor network both including matter and with this new type of area. Notably, while this area is still related to the entanglement in “edge mode” degrees of freedom, the edge modes are no longer bipartite entangled pairs. Instead they are highly multipartite. Along the way, we calculate the entropy of novel subalgebras in a particular topological gauge theory. We also show that the multipartite nature of the edge modes gives rise to non-commuting area operators, a property that other tensor networks do not exhibit.
more »
« less
Background independent tensor networks
Conventional holographic tensor networks can be described as toy holographic maps constructed from many small linear maps acting in a spatially local way, all connected together with “background entanglement”, i.e. links of a fixed state, often the maximally entangled state. However, these constructions fall short of modeling real holographic maps. One reason is that their “areas” are trivial, taking the same value for all states, unlike in gravity where the geometry is dynamical. Recently, new constructions have ameliorated this issue by adding degrees of freedom that “live on the links”. This makes areas non-trivial, equal to the background entanglement piece plus a new positive piece that depends on the state of the link degrees of freedom. Nevertheless, this still has the downside that there is background entanglement, and hence it only models relatively limited code subspaces in which every area has a definite minimum value. In this note, we simply point out that a version of these constructions goes one step further: they can be background independent, with no background entanglement in the holographic map. This is advantageous because it allows tensor networks to model holographic maps for larger code subspaces. In addition to pointing this out, we address some subtleties involved in making it work.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2207584
- PAR ID:
- 10545411
- Publisher / Repository:
- INSPIRE
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- SciPost Physics
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 2542-4653
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
null (Ed.)A bstract Entanglement entropy, or von Neumann entropy, quantifies the amount of uncertainty of a quantum state. For quantum fields in curved space, entanglement entropy of the quantum field theory degrees of freedom is well-defined for a fixed background geometry. In this paper, we propose a generalization of the quantum field theory entanglement entropy by including dynamical gravity. The generalized quantity named effective entropy, and its Renyi entropy generalizations, are defined by analytic continuation of a replica calculation. The replicated theory is defined as a gravitational path integral with multiple copies of the original boundary conditions, with a co-dimension-2 brane at the boundary of region we are studying. We discuss different approaches to define the region in a gauge invariant way, and show that the effective entropy satisfies the quantum extremal surface formula. When the quantum fields carry a significant amount of entanglement, the quantum extremal surface can have a topology transition, after which an entanglement island region appears. Our result generalizes the Hubeny-Rangamani-Takayanagi formula of holographic entropy (with quantum corrections) to general geometries without asymptotic AdS boundary, and provides a more solid framework for addressing problems such as the Page curve of evaporating black holes in asymptotic flat spacetime. We apply the formula to two example systems, a closed two-dimensional universe and a four-dimensional maximally extended Schwarzchild black hole. We discuss the analog of the effective entropy in random tensor network models, which provides more concrete understanding of quantum information properties in general dynamical geometries. We show that, in absence of a large boundary like in AdS space case, it is essential to introduce ancilla that couples to the original system, in order for correctly characterizing quantum states and correlation functions in the random tensor network. Using the superdensity operator formalism, we study the system with ancilla and show how quantum information in the entanglement island can be reconstructed in a state-dependent and observer-dependent map. We study the closed universe (without spatial boundary) case and discuss how it is related to open universe.more » « less
-
A bstract We introduce a unifying framework for the construction of holographic tensor networks, based on the theory of hyperbolic buildings. The underlying dualities relate a bulk space to a boundary which can be homeomorphic to a sphere, but also to more general spaces like a Menger sponge type fractal. In this general setting, we give a precise construction of a large family of bulk regions that satisfy complementary recovery. For these regions, our networks obey a Ryu-Takayanagi formula. The areas of Ryu-Takayanagi surfaces are controlled by the Hausdorff dimension of the boundary, and consistently generalize the behavior of holographic entanglement entropy in integer dimensions to the non-integer case. Our construction recovers HaPPY-like codes in all dimensions, and generalizes the geometry of Bruhat-Tits trees. It also provides examples of infinite-dimensional nets of holographic conditional expectations, and opens a path towards the study of conformal field theory and holography on fractal spaces.more » « less
-
A bstract Negativity is a measure of entanglement that can be used both in pure and mixed states. The negativity spectrum is the spectrum of eigenvalues of the partially transposed density matrix, and characterizes the degree and “phase” of entanglement. For pure states, it is simply determined by the entanglement spectrum. We use a diagrammatic method complemented by a modification of the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm to find the negativity spectrum in general random tensor networks with large bond dimensions. In holography, these describe the entanglement of fixed-area states. It was found that many fixed-area states have a negativity spectrum given by a semi-circle. More generally, we find new negativity spectra that appear in random tensor networks, as well as in phase transitions in holographic states, wormholes, and holographic states with bulk matter. The smallest random tensor network is the same as a micro-canonical version of Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity decorated with end-of-the-world branes. We consider the semi-classical negativity of Hawking radiation and find that contributions from islands should be included. We verify this in the JT gravity model, showing the Euclidean wormhole origin of these contributions.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)A bstract We use the notion of double holography to study Hawking radiation emitted by the eternal BTZ black hole in equilibrium with a thermal bath, but in the form of warped CFT 2 degrees of freedom. In agreement with the literature, we find entanglement islands and a phase transition in the entanglement surface, but our results differ significantly from work in AdS/CFT in three major ways: (1) the late-time entropy decreases in time, (2) island degrees of freedom exist at all times, not just at late times, with the phase transition changing whether or not these degrees of freedom include the black hole interior, and (3) the physics involves a field-theoretic IR divergence emerging when the boundary interval is too big relative to the black hole’s inverse temperature. This behavior in the entropy appears to be consistent with the non-unitarity of holographic warped CFT 2 and demonstrates that the islands are not a phenomenon restricted to black hole information in unitary setups.more » « less
An official website of the United States government

