Tadashi Takayanagi

Aspects of holographic entanglement entropy

This is an extended version of our short report [1], where a holographic interpretation of entanglement entropy in conformal field theories is proposed from AdS/CFT correspondence. In addition to a concise review of relevant recent progresses of entanglement entropy and details omitted in the earlier letter, this paper includes the following several new results: We give a more direct derivation of our claim which relates the entanglement entropy with the minimal area surfaces in the AdS3/CFT2 case as well as some further discussions on higher dimensional cases. Also the relation between the entanglement entropy and central charges in 4D conformal field theories is examined. We check that the logarithmic part of the 4D entanglement entropy computed in the CFT side agrees with the AdS5 result at least under a specific condition. Finally we estimate the entanglement entropy of massive theories in generic dimensions by making use of our proposal.

A Covariant holographic entanglement entropy proposal

With an aim towards understanding the time-dependence of entanglement entropy in generic quantum field theories, we propose a covariant generalization of the holographic entanglement entropy proposal of hep-th/0603001. Apart from providing several examples of possible covariant generalizations, we study a particular construction based on light-sheets, motivated in similar spirit to the covariant entropy bound underlying the holographic principle. In particular, we argue that the entanglement entropy associated with a specified region on the boundary in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence is given by the area of a co-dimension two bulk surface with vanishing expansions of null geodesics. We demonstrate our construction with several examples to illustrate its reduction to the holographic entanglement entropy proposal in static spacetimes. We further show how this proposal may be used to understand the time evolution of entanglement entropy in a time varying QFT state dual to a collapsing black hole background. Finally, we use our proposal to argue that the Euclidean wormhole geometries with multiple boundaries should be regarded as states in a non-interacting but entangled set of QFTs, one associated to each boundary.

Holographic entanglement entropy: an overview

In this paper, we review recent progress on the holographic understanding of the entanglement entropy in the anti-de Sitter space/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence. In general, the AdS/CFT relates physical observables in strongly coupled quantum many-body systems to certain classical quantities in gravity plus matter theories. In the case of our holographic entanglement entropy, its gravity dual turns out to be purely geometric, i.e. the area of minimal area surfaces in AdS spaces. One interesting application is to study various phase transitions by regarding the entanglement entropy as order parameters. Indeed we will see that our holographic calculations nicely reproduce the confinement/deconfinement transition. Our results can also be applied to understanding the microscopic origins of black hole entropy.

On type IIA Penrose limit and = 6 Chern-Simons theories

Recently, Aharony, Bergman, Jafferis and Maldacena proposed that the = 6 Chern-Simons gauge theories are holographically dual to the M-theory backgrounds with multiple M2-branes on orbifolds C4/Zk. When k is large, they have the type IIA string description. In this paper we analyze the Penrose limit of this IIA background and express the string spectrum as the conformal dimensions of operators in the gauge theories. For BPS operators, we can confirm the agreements between the IIA string on plane waves and the gauge theories. We point out that there exist BMN-like operators in the gauge theories, though their holographic interpretation does not seem to be simple. Also we analyze the weak coupling limit of this theory and show that the Hagedorn/deconfinement transition occurs as expected.

Brane-antibrane action from boundary string field theory

In this paper we give the boundary string field theory description of brane-antibrane systems. From the world-sheet action of brane-antibrane systems we obtain the tachyon potential and discuss the tachyon condensation exactly. We also find the world-volume action including the gauge fields. Moreover we determine RR-couplings exactly for non-BPS branes and brane-antibranes. These couplings are written by superconnections and correspond to K1(M) and K0(M) for the non-BPS branes and brane-antibranes, respectively. We also show that Myers terms appear if we include the transverse scalars in the boundary sigma model action.

Holographic Fermi surfaces and entanglement entropy

A bstractWe argue that Landau-Fermi liquids do not have any gravity duals in the purely classical limit. We employ the logarithmic behavior of entanglement entropy to characterize the existence of Fermi surfaces. By imposing the null energy condition, we show that the specific heat always behaves anomalously. We also present a classical gravity dual which has the expected behavior of the entanglement entropy and specific heat for non-Fermi liquids.

A matrix model dual of type 0B string theory in two dimensions

We propose that type 0B string theory in two dimensions admits a dual description in terms of a one dimensional bosonic matrix model of a hermitean matrix. The potential in the matrix model is symmetric with respect to the parity-like Z2 transformation of the matrix. The two sectors in the theory, namely the NSNS and RR scalar sectors correspond to two classes of operators in the matrix model, even and odd under the Z2 symmetry respectively. We provide evidence that the matrix model successfully reconstructs the perturbative S-matrix of the string theory, and reproduces the closed string emission amplitude from unstable D-branes. Following recent work in two dimensional bosonic string, we argue that the matrix model can be identified with the theory describing N unstable D0-branes in type 0B theory. We also argue that type 0A theory is described in terms of the quantum mechanics of brane-antibrane systems.

Entanglement entropy from a holographic viewpoint

The entanglement entropy has been historically studied by many authors in order to obtain quantum mechanical interpretations of the gravitational entropy. The discovery of anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence has led to the idea of holographic entanglement entropy, which is a clear solution to this important problem in gravity. In this review, we would like to give a quick survey of recent progresses in the holographic entanglement entropy. We focus on its gravitational aspects, so that it is comprehensible to those who are familiar with general relativity and basics of quantum field theory.

Holographic proof of the strong subadditivity of entanglement entropy

When a quantum system is divided into subsystems, their entanglement entropies are subject to an inequality known as strong subadditivity. For a field theory this inequality can be stated as follows: given any two regions of space A and B, S(A)+S(B){>=}S(A cup B)+S(A intersection B). Recently, a method has been found for computing entanglement entropies in any field theory for which there is a holographically dual gravity theory. We give a simple geometrical proof of strong subadditivity employing this holographic prescription.

On string theory duals of Lifshitz-like fixed points

We present type IIB supergravity solutions which are expected to be dual to certain Lifshitz-like fixed points with anisotropic scale invariance. They are expected to describe a class of D3-D7 systems and their finite temperature generalizations are straightforward. We show that there exist solutions that interpolate between these anisotropic solutions in the IR and the standard AdS5 solutions in the UV. This predicts anisotropic RG flows from familiar isotropic fixed points to anisotropic ones. In our case, these RG flows are triggered by a non-zero theta-angle in Yang-Mills theories that linearly depends on one of the spatial coordinates. We study the perturbations around these backgrounds and discuss the possibility of instability. We also holographically compute their thermal entropies, viscosities, and entanglement entropies.