First Law of Proto-Area Entropy from Modular Spectral Geometry
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 . 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~, traced to 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 , parametrically matching the semi-classical relation .
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