Thermofield Double State Research Articles

Geometric quantum discord signals non-factorization

We propose the information-theoretic quantity of geometric quantum discord (GQD) as an indicator of the factorization properties of a given quantum system. In particular, we show how non-vanishing discord implies that the corresponding partition function does not factorize, both for generic pure states and the thermofield double state as a state with a known geometric dual in light of the AdS/CFT correspondence. Via this analysis, we give a novel interpretation to the thermomixed double state as the best purely classical approximation of the Einstein-Rosen bridge. We connect the non-vanishing of GQD with the existence of wormhole microstates.

Generalized volume-complexity for RN-AdS black hole

The connection between quantum information and quantum gravity has captured the imagination of physicists. Recently, a broad new class of gravitational observables have been proposed to provide new possibilities for holographic complexity [1], which is an extension of volume in the Complexity=Volume proposal. In this paper, we investigate generalized volume-complexity for the 4-dimensional Reissner-Nordström-AdS black hole. These new gravitational observables satisfy the characteristic of the thermofield double state, i.e., they grow linearly in time on the late stage. We find that there are multiple extremal hypersurfaces anchored at a certain boundary time. In other words, for the same boundary time, more than one gravitational observable (generalized volume-complexity) can exist in the bulk. The size relationship of the gravitational observables on the two hypersurfaces changes over time. This will result in the substitution of the maximum extreme hypersurface which is dual to the complexity of the thermofield double state. We call the time when one hypersurface replaces another to become the largest extreme hypersurface the turning time τturning. That is, a hypersurface dual to the complexity of the thermofield double state defined on the boundary jumps from one branch to another. This discontinuous jump is highly reminiscent of a phase transition, and the turning time denotes the moment at which this phase transition occurs. Our findings propose a discontinuous variation in bulk physics that is dual to the complexity of the thermofield double state defined on the boundary.

Kappa vacua: enhancing the Unruh temperature

We provide further elaboration on kappa mode, which is a mode constructed by the linear combination of Rindler modes in the right and the left Rindler wedges, exhibiting norms with opposite signs. We establish a relation among different kappa vacua, resembling the thermofield double state. However, the energy of a kappa photon no longer exhibits a linear dependence on its frequency, unless the limit of κ → 0 (the Rindler vacuum) is taken into account. In other words, a kappa vacuum can be expressed in terms of the Rindler vacuum as the conventional thermofield double state, with the usual energy for a photon. However, it features a modified Unruh temperature given by {T}_{kappa }=frac{mathit{hslash a}}{2pi c{k}_B}kappa . Consequently, when a uniformly accelerated observer with an acceleration a is immersed in a κ-vacuum, they perceive a thermal bath. However, the temperature experienced by the observer is a modified Unruh temperature denoted as Tκ. Remarkably, the Unruh temperature can be enhanced by an arbitrary factor of κ.

Holographic measurement in CFT thermofield doubles

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.

De Sitter space, extremal surfaces, and time entanglement

We refine previous investigations on de Sitter space and extremal surfaces anchored at the future boundary $I^+$. Since such surfaces do not return, they require extra data or boundary conditions in the past (interior). In entirely Lorentzian de Sitter spacetime, this leads to future-past timelike surfaces stretching between $I^\pm$. Apart from an overall $-i$ factor (relative to spacelike surfaces in $AdS$) their areas are real and positive. With a no-boundary type boundary condition, the top half of these timelike surfaces joins with a spacelike part on the hemisphere giving a complex-valued area. Motivated by these, we describe two aspects of "time-entanglement" in simple toy models in quantum mechanics. One is based on a future-past thermofield double type state entangling timelike separated states, which leads to entirely positive structures. Another is based on the time evolution operator and reduced transition amplitudes, which leads to complex-valued entropy.

On the spread of entanglement at finite cutoff

We study how entanglement spreads in the boundary duals of finite-cutoff three-dimensional theories with positive, negative and zero cosmological constant, the Toverline{T} + Λ2 two-dimensional theories. We first study the Hawking-Page transition in all three cases, and find that there is a transition in all three scenarios at the temperature where the lengths of the two cycles of the torus are the same. We then study the entanglement entropy in the thermofield double states above the Hawking-Page transition, of regions symmetrically placed on the two boundaries. We consider the case where the region is one interval on each side, and the case where it is two intervals on each side. We give an entanglement tsunami interpretation of the time-evolution of the entanglement entropies.

On SYK traversable wormhole with imperfectly correlated disorders

In this paper, we study the phase structure of two Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev models (L-system and R-system) coupled by a simple interaction, with imperfectly correlated disorder. When the disorder of the two systems is perfectly correlated, {J}_{i_1cdots {i}_q}^{(L)}={J}_{i_1cdots {i}_q}^{(R)} , this model is known to exhibit a phase transition at a finite temperature between the two-black hole phase at high temperature and the traversable wormhole phase at low temperature. We find that, as the correlation leftlangle {J}_{i_1cdots {i}_q}^{(L)}={J}_{i_1cdots {i}_q}^{(R)}rightrangle is decreased, the critical temperature becomes lower. At the same time, the transmission between the L-system and R-system in the low-temperature phase becomes more suppressed, while the chaos exponent of the whole system becomes larger. Interestingly we also observe that when the correlation is smaller than some q-dependent critical value the phase transition completely disappears in the entire parameter space. At zero temperature, the energy gap becomes larger as we decrease the correlation. We also use a generalized thermofield double state as a variational state. Interestingly, this state coincides with the ground state in the large q limit.

A holographic study of the characteristics of chaos and correlation in the presence of backreaction

In this work, we perform a holographic study to estimate the effect of backreaction on the correlation between two subsystems forming the thermofield double (TFD) state. Each of these subsystems is described as a strongly coupled large-Nc thermal field theory, and the backreaction imparted to it is sourced by the presence of a uniform distribution of heavy static quarks. The TFD state we consider here holographically corresponds to an entangled state of two AdS blackholes, each of which is deformed by a uniform distribution of static strings. In order to make a holographic estimation of correlation between two entangled boundary field theories in presence of backreaction we compute the holographic mutual information in the backreacted eternal blackhole. The late time exponential growth of an early perturbation is a signature of chaos in the boundary thermal field theory. Using the shock wave analysis in the dual bulk theory, we characterize this chaotic behaviour by computing the holographic butterfly velocity. We find that there is a reduction in the butterfly velocity due to a correction term that depends on the backreaction parameter. The late time exponential growth of an early perturbation destroys the two-sided correlation, whereas the backreaction always acts in favour of it. Finally we compute the entanglement velocity that essentially encodes the rate of disruption of correlation between two boundary theories.

Complexity equals anything II

We expand on our results in [1] to present a broad new class of gravitational observables in asymptotically Anti-de Sitter space living on general codimension-zero regions of the bulk spacetime. By taking distinct limits, these observables can reduce to well-studied holographic complexity proposals, e.g., the volume of the maximal slice and the action or spacetime volume of the Wheeler-DeWitt patch. As with the codimension-one family found in [1], these new observables display two key universal features for the thermofield double state: they grow linearly in time at late times and reproduce the switchback effect. Hence we argue that any member of this new class of observables is an equally viable candidate as a gravitational dual of complexity. Moreover, using the Peierls construction, we show that variations of the codimension-zero and codimension-one observables are encoded in the gravitational symplectic form on the semi-classical phase-space, which can then be mapped to the CFT.

Fast scrambling of mutual information in Kerr- AdS4 spacetime

We compute the disruption of mutual information between the hemispherical subsystems on the left and right conformal field theories of a thermofield double state described by a Kerr geometry in ${\mathrm{AdS}}_{4}$ due to shock waves along the equatorial plane. The shock waves and the subsystems considered respect the axisymmetry of the geometry. At late times, the disruption of the mutual information is given by the lengthening of the Hubeny-Rangamani-Takayanagi surface connecting the two subsystems; we compute the minimum value of the Lyapunov index-${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{L}^{(\mathrm{min})}$ at late times and find that it is bounded by $\ensuremath{\kappa}=\frac{2\ensuremath{\pi}{T}_{H}}{(1\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathcal{L})}$, where $\ensuremath{\mu}$ is the horizon velocity, and $\mathcal{L}$ is the angular momentum per unit energy of the shock wave. At very late times, we find the scrambling time for such a system is governed by $\ensuremath{\kappa}$ with $\ensuremath{\kappa}{t}_{*}=\mathrm{log}\mathcal{S}$ for large black holes with a large entropy $\mathcal{S}$. We also find a term that increases the scrambling time by $\mathrm{log}(1\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathcal{L}{)}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ but which does not scale with the entropy of the Kerr geometry.

Non-Hermitian Hamiltonian deformations in quantum mechanics

The construction of exactly-solvable models has recently been advanced by considering integrable Toverline{T} deformations and related Hamiltonian deformations in quantum mechanics. We introduce a broader class of non-Hermitian Hamiltonian deformations in a nonrelativistic setting, to account for the description of a large class of open quantum systems, which includes, e.g., arbitrary Markovian evolutions conditioned to the absence of quantum jumps. We relate the time evolution operator and the time-evolving density matrix in the undeformed and deformed theories in terms of integral transforms with a specific kernel. Non-Hermitian Hamiltonian deformations naturally arise in the description of energy diffusion that emerges in quantum systems from time-keeping errors in a real clock used to track time evolution. We show that the latter can be related to an inverse Toverline{T} deformation with a purely imaginary deformation parameter. In this case, the integral transforms take a particularly simple form when the initial state is a coherent Gibbs state or a thermofield double state, as we illustrate by characterizing the purity, Rényi entropies, logarithmic negativity, and the spectral form factor. As the dissipative evolution of a quantum system can be conveniently described in Liouville space, we further study the spectral properties of the Liouvillians, i.e., the dynamical generators associated with the deformed theories. As an application, we discuss the interplay between decoherence and quantum chaos in non-Hermitian deformations of random matrix Hamiltonians and the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model.

Bouncing inside the horizon and scrambling delays

We study charged perturbations of the thermofield double state dual to a charged AdS black hole. We model the perturbation by a massless charged shell in the bulk. Unlike the neutral case, all such shells bounce at a definite radius, which can be behind the horizon. We show that the standard “shock wave” calculation of a scrambling time indicates that adding charge increases the scrambling time. We then give two arguments using the bounce that suggest that scrambling does not actually take longer when charge is added, but instead its onset is delayed. We also construct a boundary four point function which detects whether the shell bounces inside the black hole.

Stringy ER = EPR

The ER = EPR correspondence relates a superposition of entangled, disconnected spacetimes to a connected spacetime with an Einstein-Rosen bridge. We construct examples in which both sides may be described by weakly-coupled string theory. The relation between them is given by a Lorentzian continuation of the FZZ duality of the two-dimensional Euclidean black hole CFT in one example, and in another example by continuation of a similar duality that we propose for the asymptotic Euclidean AdS3 black hole. This gives a microscopic understanding of ER = EPR: one has a worldsheet duality between string theory in a connected, eternal black hole, and in a superposition of disconnected geometries in an entangled state. The disconnected description includes a condensate of entangled folded strings emanating from a strong-coupling region in place of a bifurcation point. Our construction relies on a Lorentzian interpretation of Euclidean time winding operators via angular quantization, as well as some lesser known worldsheet string theories, such as perturbation theory around a thermofield-double state, which we define using Schwinger-Keldysh contours in target space.

Upper bounds of holographic entanglement entropy growth rate for thermofield double states

We studied the upper bounds of the holographic entanglement entropy growth rate for thermofield double (TFD) states. By comparing the cases of vacuum AdS and charged AdS black holes, we conjecture: for all static planar or spherically symmetric asymptotically Schwarzschild-AdS black holes of same mass density or entropy density, the vacuum AdS black hole gives the maximum entanglement entropy growth rate. We gave proofs by assuming dominant energy condition. We also considered the AdS black hole spacetime with real scalar fields case, where the scalar fields violate the dominant energy condition and the bulk geometry is not asymptotically Schwarzschild-AdS. Numerical results show that this case vacuum black hole still has maximal growth rate if we fixed entropy. However, in the case of fixed energy, vacuum case has maximal growth rate of entanglement entropy only under standard quantization scheme.

Entanglement between two evaporating black holes

We study a thermo-field double type entangle state on two disjoint gravitating universes, say A and B, with an eternal black hole on each. As was shown previously, its entanglement entropy of the universe A is computed by the generalized entropy on a new spacetime constructed by suitably gluing the black holes on A and B. We study such spacetime gluings when universes are asymptotically flat and AdS cases, especially when the masses of these black holes are different. We also clarify the rule to construct such a glued spacetime in more general settings from the gravitational path integral view point.

Quantum information scrambling and quantum chaos in little string theory

In the current manuscript we perform a systematic investigation about the effects of nonlocal interaction to the spread of quantum information in many body system. In particular, we have studied how nonlocality influence the existing bound on the growth rate of the commutator involving two local operators, the butterfly velocity. For this purpose, we consider the nonlocal theory on the worldvolume of N ≫ 1, NS5 branes arising in the limit of vanishing string coupling, the ‘little string theory’. A direct evidence of nonlocality can be realized from the ‘volume law’ behavior for the most dominant part of holographic entanglement entropy. We obtain the butterfly velocity by studying the dynamics of the near horizon geometry backreacted by a high energy quanta in the form of a shockwave resulting from an early perturbation on the corresponding thermofield double state. We observe that the butterfly velocity increases with the nonlocal scale of little string theory, the inverse Hagedorn temperature βh, indicating a faster rate of information spread due to the nonlocal interaction. The same conclusion follows as the disruption of two sided mutual information is observed to occur at a faster rate for higher values of βh. Finally, we realize a direct connection between the parameters of quantum chaos and the quasinormal modes for collective excitations through the phenomenon of ‘pole skipping’.

BROTOCs and Quantum Information Scrambling at Finite Temperature

Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) have been extensively studied in recent years as a diagnostic of quantum information scrambling. In this paper, we study quantum information-theoretic aspects of the regularized finite-temperature OTOC. We introduce analytical results for the bipartite regularized OTOC (BROTOC): the regularized OTOC averaged over random unitaries supported over a bipartition. We show that the BROTOC has several interesting properties, for example, it quantifies the purity of the associated thermofield double state and the operator purity of the analytically continued time-evolution operator. At infinite-temperature, it reduces to one minus the operator entanglement of the time-evolution operator. In the zero-temperature limit and for nondegenerate Hamiltonians, the BROTOC probes the groundstate entanglement. By computing long-time averages, we show that the equilibration value of the BROTOC is intimately related to eigenstate entanglement. Finally, we numerically study the equilibration value of the BROTOC for various physically relevant Hamiltonian models and comment on its ability to distinguish integrable and chaotic dynamics.

BROTOCs and Quantum Information Scrambling at Finite Temperature

Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) have been extensively studied in recent years as a diagnostic of quantum information scrambling. In this paper, we study quantum information-theoretic aspects of the regularized finite-temperature OTOC. We introduce analytical results for the bipartite regularized OTOC (BROTOC): the regularized OTOC averaged over random unitaries supported over a bipartition. We show that the BROTOC has several interesting properties, for example, it quantifies the purity of the associated thermofield double state and the operator purity of the analytically continued time-evolution operator. At infinite-temperature, it reduces to one minus the operator entanglement of the time-evolution operator. In the zero-temperature limit and for nondegenerate Hamiltonians, the BROTOC probes the groundstate entanglement. By computing long-time averages, we show that the equilibration value of the BROTOC is intimately related to eigenstate entanglement. Finally, we numerically study the equilibration value of the BROTOC for various physically relevant Hamiltonian models and comment on its ability to distinguish integrable and chaotic dynamics.

Entanglement dynamics of thermofield double states in integrable models

We study the entanglement dynamics of thermofield double (TFD) states in integrable spin chains and quantum field theories. We show that, for a natural choice of the Hamiltonian eigenbasis, the TFD evolution may be interpreted as a quantum quench from an initial state which is low-entangled in the real-space representation and displays a simple quasiparticle structure. Based on a semiclassical picture analogous to the one developed for standard quantum quenches, we conjecture a formula for the entanglement dynamics, which is valid for both discrete and continuous integrable field theories, and expected to be exact in the scaling limit of large space and time scales. We test our conjecture in two prototypical examples of integrable spin chains, where numerical tests are possible. First, in the XY-model, we compare our predictions with exact results obtained by mapping the system to free fermions, finding excellent agreement. Second, we test our conjecture in the interacting XXZ Heisenberg model, against numerical iTEBD calculations. For the latter, we generally find good agreement, although, for some range of the system parameters and within the accessible simulation times, some small discrepancies are visible, which we attribute to finite-time effects.

Scrambling time for analogue black holes embedded in AdS space

We propose a gedanken experiment on realizing thermofield double state (TFD) by using analog black holes and provide an approach to test the scrambling time. Through this approach, we demonstrate clearly how shock wave changes the TFD state as time evolves. As the whole system evolves forward in time, the perturbation of space-time geometry will increase exponentially. Finally, it will destroy the entanglement between the two states of the thermal field, and the mutual information between them is reduced to zero in the time scale of scrambling. The results show that for perturbations of analogue black holes embedded in AdS space, the scale of the scrambling time is closely related to the logarithm of entropy of the black hole. The results provide further theoretical argument for the scrambling time, which can be further falsified in experiments.