Holographic measurement in CFT thermofield doubles

Journal Article · Mon Jul 03 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep07(2023)014· OSTI ID:2419912

Antonini, Stefano ^[1]; Grado-White, Brianna ^[2]; Jian, Shao-Kai ^[3]; Swingle, Brian ^[2]

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1. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States); Brandeis Univ., Waltham, MA (United States)
2. Brandeis Univ., Waltham, MA (United States)
3. Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA (United States)

We extend the results of arXiv:2209.12903 by studying local projective measurements performed on subregions of two copies of a CFT₂ in the thermofield double state and investigating their consequences on the bulk double-sided black hole holographic dual. We focus on CFTs defined on an infinite line and consider measurements of both finite and semi-infinite subregions. In the former case, the connectivity of the bulk spacetime is preserved after the measurement. In the latter case, the measurement of two semi-infinite intervals in one CFT or of one semi-infinite interval in each CFT can destroy the Einstein-Rosen bridge and disconnect the bulk dual spacetime. In particular, we find that a transition between a connected and disconnected phase occurs depending on the relative size of the measured and unmeasured subregions and on the specific Cardy state the measured subregions are projected on. We identify this phase transition as an entangled/disentangled phase transition of the dual CFT system by computing the post-measurement holographic entanglement entropy between the two CFTs. We also find that bulk information encoded in one CFT in the absence of measurement can sometimes be reconstructed from the other CFT when a measurement is performed, or can be erased by the measurement. Finally, we show that a purely CFT calculation of the Renyi entropy using the replica trick yields results compatible with those obtained in our bulk analysis.

• Research Organization: Brandeis Univ., Waltham, MA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0009986
• OSTI ID: 2419912
• Journal Information: Journal of High Energy Physics (Online), Journal Name: Journal of High Energy Physics (Online) Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 2023; ISSN 1029-8479
• Publisher: Springer Nature
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
AdS-CFT Correspondence
Black Holes
Boundary Quantum Field Theory
Physics