English

First Law of Proto-Area Entropy from Modular Spectral Geometry

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-07-31 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Quantum Physics

Abstract

We derive a first law of proto-area entropy in the CCKLP--Witten framework for approximate holographic entanglement wedge reconstruction. The central spectral function admits a modular Hamiltonian representation with kernel L(x)=xcoth(x/2)L(x)=x\coth(x/2). For near-maximally-mixed bulk states, and within the unstructured Gaussian-unitary-ensemble (GUE) model of the encoding perturbation, the ensemble-averaged proto-area entropy varies linearly with bulk entropy to leading order, with a response coefficient containing a universal factor~1/31/3, traced to L(0)/2=1/6L''(0)/2=1/6 and independent of the bulk spectrum's detailed shape within this model. Imposing the gravitational-scaling condition required for nonzero backreaction, the first-law coefficient is O(1)O(1), parametrically matching the semi-classical relation δ(Area/4GN)=δSbulk\delta({\rm Area}/4G_N)=\delta S_{\rm bulk}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.29432,
  title  = {First Law of Proto-Area Entropy from Modular Spectral Geometry},
  author = {Ling-Zheng Xia and Lixin Xu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.29432},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

10 pages, 3 figures; submitted to Eur. Phys. J. C