Contributor info: Dr Alexandre Belin

Alexandre Belin, Jan de Boer, Pranjal Nayak, Julian Sonner

SciPost Phys. 12, 059 (2022) · published 11 February 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We generalize the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis to systems with global symmetries. We present two versions, one with microscopic charge conservation and one with exponentially suppressed violations. They agree for correlation functions of simple operators, but differ in the variance of charged one-point functions at finite temperature. We then apply these ideas to holography and to gravitational low-energy effective theories with a global symmetry. We show that Euclidean wormholes predict a non-zero variance for charged one-point functions, which is incompatible with microscopic charge conservation. This implies that global symmetries in quantum gravity must either be gauged or explicitly broken by non-perturbative effects.

Alexandre Belin, Nathan Benjamin, Alejandra Castro, Sarah M. Harrison, Christoph A. Keller

SciPost Phys. 8, 084 (2020) · published 3 June 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We explore large-$N$ symmetric orbifolds of the $\mathcal N=2$ minimal models, and find evidence that their moduli spaces each contain a supergravity point. We identify single-trace exactly marginal operators that deform them away from the symmetric orbifold locus. We also show that their elliptic genera exhibit slow growth consistent with supergravity spectra in AdS$_3$. We thus propose an infinite family of new holographic CFTs.

Alexandre Belin, Nabil Iqbal, Jorrit Kruthoff

SciPost Phys. 8, 075 (2020) · published 13 May 2020 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We study quantum corrections to holographic entanglement entropy in AdS$_3$/CFT$_2$; these are given by the bulk entanglement entropy across the Ryu-Takayanagi surface for all fields in the effective gravitational theory. We consider bulk $U(1)$ gauge fields and gravitons, whose dynamics in AdS$_3$ are governed by Chern-Simons terms and are therefore topological. In this case the relevant Hilbert space is that of the edge excitations. A novelty of the holographic construction is that such modes live not only on the bulk entanglement cut but also on the AdS boundary. We describe the interplay of these excitations and provide an explicit map to the appropriate extended Hilbert space. We compute the bulk entanglement entropy for the CFT vacuum state and find that the effect of the bulk entanglement entropy is to renormalize the relation between the effective holographic central charge and Newton's constant. We also consider excited states obtained by acting with the $U(1)$ current on the vacuum, and compute the difference in bulk entanglement entropy between these states and the vacuum. We compute this UV-finite difference both in the bulk and in the CFT finding a perfect agreement.

Alexandre Belin, Jan de Boer, Jorrit Kruthoff

SciPost Phys. 5, 060 (2018) · published 10 December 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We investigate the existence of a state-operator correspondence on the torus. This correspondence would relate states of the CFT Hilbert space living on a spatial torus to the path integral over compact Euclidean manifolds with operator insertions. Unlike the states on the sphere that are associated to local operators, we argue that those on the torus would more naturally be associated to line operators. We find evidence that such a correspondence cannot exist and in particular, we argue that no compact Euclidean path integral can produce the vacuum on the torus. Our arguments come solely from field theory and formulate a CFT version of the Horowitz-Myers conjecture for the AdS soliton.

Alexandre Belin, Nabil Iqbal, Sagar F. Lokhande

SciPost Phys. 5, 024 (2018) · published 20 September 2018 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We compute the bulk entanglement entropy across the Ryu-Takayanagi surface for a one-particle state in a scalar field theory in AdS$_3$. We work directly within the bulk Hilbert space and include the spatial spread of the scalar wavefunction. We give closed form expressions in the limit of small interval sizes and compare the result to a CFT computation of entanglement entropy in an excited primary state at large $c$. Including the contribution from the backreacted minimal area, we find agreement between the CFT result and the FLM and JLMS formulas for quantum corrections to holographic entanglement entropy. This provides a non-trivial check in a state where the answer is not dictated by symmetry. Along the way, we provide closed-form expressions for the scalar field Bogoliubov coefficients that relate the global and Rindler slicings of AdS$_3$.