Xi Dong

Aspects of holography for theories with hyperscaling violation

A bstractWe analyze various aspects of the recently proposed holographic theories with general dynamical critical exponent z and hyperscaling violation exponent θ. We first find the basic constraints on z, θ from the gravity side, and compute the stress-energy tensor expectation values and scalar two-point functions. Massive correlators exhibit a nontrivial exponential behavior at long distances, controlled by θ. At short distance, the two-point functions become power-law, with a universal form for θ > 0. Next, the calculation of the holographic entanglement entropy reveals the existence of novel phases which violate the area law. The entropy in these phases has a behavior that interpolates between that of a Fermi surface and that exhibited by systems with extensive entanglement entropy. Finally, we describe microscopic embeddings of some θ ≠ 0 metrics into full string theory models — these metrics characterize large regions of the parameter space of Dp-brane metrics for p ≠ 3. For instance, the theory of N D2-branes in IIA super gravity has z = 1 and θ = −1/3 over a wide range of scales, at large gsN.

Holographic Entanglement Entropy for General Higher Derivative Gravity

A bstractWe propose a general formula for calculating the entanglement entropy in theories dual to higher derivative gravity where the Lagrangian is a contraction of Riemann tensors. Our formula consists of Wald’s formula for the black hole entropy, as well as corrections involving the extrinsic curvature. We derive these corrections by noting that they arise from naively higher order contributions to the action which are enhanced due to would-be logarithmic divergences. Our formula reproduces the Jacobson-Myers entropy in the context of Lovelock gravity, and agrees with existing results for general four-derivative gravity.We emphasize that the formula should be evaluated on a particular bulk surface whose location can in principle be determined by solving the equations of motion with conical boundary conditions. This may be difficult in practice, and an alternative method is desirable. A natural prescription is simply minimizing our formula, analogous to the Ryu-Takayanagi prescription for Einstein gravity. We show that this is correct in several examples including Lovelock and general four-derivative gravity.

Bulk locality and quantum error correction in AdS/CFT

A bstractWe point out a connection between the emergence of bulk locality in AdS/CFT and the theory of quantum error correction. Bulk notions such as Bogoliubov transformations, location in the radial direction, and the holographic entropy bound all have natural CFT interpretations in the language of quantum error correction. We also show that the question of whether bulk operator reconstruction works only in the causal wedge or all the way to the extremal surface is related to the question of whether or not the quantum error correcting code realized by AdS/CFT is also a “quantum secret sharing scheme”, and suggest a tensor network calculation that may settle the issue. Interestingly, the version of quantum error correction which is best suited to our analysis is the somewhat nonstandard “operator algebra quantum error correction” of Beny, Kempf, and Kribs. Our proposal gives a precise formulation of the idea of “subregion-subregion” duality in AdS/CFT, and clarifies the limits of its validity.

Simple Exercises to Flatten your Potential

We show how backreaction of the inflaton potential energy on heavy scalar fields can flatten the inflationary potential, as the heavy fields adjust to their most energetically favorable configuration. This mechanism operates in previous UV-complete examples of axion monodromy inflation - flattening a would-be quadratic potential to one linear in the inflaton field - but occurs more generally, and we illustrate the effect with several examples. Special choices of compactification minimizing backreaction may realize chaotic inflation with a quadratic potential, but we argue that a flatter potential such as power-law inflation V({phi}) {proportional_to} {phi}{sup p} with p < 2 is a more generic option at sufficiently large values of {phi}.

Holographic entanglement beyond classical gravity

A bstractThe Rényi entropies and entanglement entropy of 1+1 CFTs with gravity duals can be computed by explicit construction of the bulk spacetimes dual to branched covers of the boundary geometry. At the classical level in the bulk this has recently been shown to reproduce the conjectured Ryu-Takayanagi formula for the holographic entanglement entropy. We study the one-loop bulk corrections to this formula. The functional determinants in the bulk geometries are given by a sum over certain words of generators of the Schottky group of the branched cover. For the case of two disjoint intervals on a line we obtain analytic answers for the one-loop entanglement entropy in an expansion in small cross-ratio. These reproduce and go beyond anticipated universal terms that are not visible classically in the bulk. We also consider the case of a single interval on a circle at finite temperature. At high temperatures we show that the one-loop contributions introduce expected finite size corrections to the entanglement entropy that are not present classically. At low temperatures, the one-loop corrections capture the mixed nature of the density matrix, also not visible classically below the Hawking-Page temperature.

Reconstruction of Bulk Operators within the Entanglement Wedge in Gauge-Gravity Duality

In this Letter we prove a simple theorem in quantum information theory, which implies that bulk operators in the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence can be reconstructed as CFT operators in a spatial subregion A, provided that they lie in its entanglement wedge. This is an improvement on existing reconstruction methods, which have at most succeeded in the smaller causal wedge. The proof is a combination of the recent work of Jafferis, Lewkowycz, Maldacena, and Suh on the quantum relative entropy of a CFT subregion with earlier ideas interpreting the correspondence as a quantum error correcting code.

Micromanaging de Sitter holography

We develop tools to engineer de Sitter vacua with semi-holographic duals, using elliptic brations and orientifolds to uplift Freund-Rubin compactications with CFT duals. The dual brane construction is compact and constitutes a microscopic realization of the dS/dS correspondence, realizing d-dimensional de Sitter space as a warped compactication down to ( d 1)-dimensional de Sitter gravity coupled to a pair of large-N matter sectors. This provides a parametric microscopic interpretation of the Gibbons-Hawking entropy. We illustrate these ideas with an explicit class of examples in three dimensions, and describe ongoing work on four-dimensional constructions.

Holographic Reconstruction of General Bulk Surfaces

A bstractWe propose a reconstruction of general bulk surfaces in any dimension in terms of the differential entropy in the boundary field theory. In particular, we extend the proof of Headrick et al. to calculate the area of a general class of surfaces, which have a 1-parameter foliation over a closed manifold. The area can be written in terms of extremal surfaces whose boundaries lie on ring-like regions in the field theory. We discuss when this construction has a description in terms of spatial entanglement entropy and suggest lessons for a more complete and covariant approach.

The Benefits of Stress: Resolution of the Lifshitz Singularity

Through the AdS/CFT correspondence, Lifshitz spacetimes describe field theories with dynamical scaling (z 6 1). Although curvature invariants are small, the Lifshitz metric exhibits a null singularity in the IR with a large tidal force that excites string oscillator modes. However, Lifshitz is not a vacuum solution of the Einstein equations – the metric is supported by nontrivial matter content which must be taken into account in analyzing the propagation of test objects. In this paper, we consider the interaction of a string with a D0-brane density in the IR which supports a class of UV-complete z = 2 Lifshitz constructions. We show that string/D-brane scattering in the Regge limit slows the string significantly, preventing divergent mode production and resolving the would-be singularity in string propagation.

Mathieu moonshine and \mathcal{N}=2 string compactifications

A bstractThere is a ‘Mathieu moonshine’ relating the elliptic genus of K3 to the sporadic group M24. Here, we give evidence that this moonshine extends to part of the web of dualities connecting heterotic strings compactified on K3 × T2 to type IIA strings compactified on Calabi-Yau threefolds. We demonstrate that dimensions of M24 representations govern the new supersymmetric index of the heterotic compactifications, and appear in the Gromov-Witten invariants of the dual Calabi-Yau threefolds, which are elliptic fibrations over the Hirzebruch surfaces