Theory HEP Seminar

Shape Dependence of Entanglement Entropy and Modular Hamiltonians

Onkar Parrikar

UPenn

We will show how to obtain the modular Hamiltonian for deformed half-spaces in relativistic quantum field theories to first order in the shape-perturbation. Together with the monotonicity of relative entropy, this allows one to prove the averaged null energy condition in a broad class of states. In the special case of CFTs, we will then derive a formula for the shape-dependence of the entanglement entropy to second-order in the shape perturbation, and subsequently use it to prove the corner-term conjectures (which were based on AdS/CFT calculations).

Relevant papers: arXiv:1511.05179 and arXiv:1605.08072.