English

Holographic entanglement entropy and gravitational anomalies

High Energy Physics - Theory 2015-06-19 v1

Abstract

We study entanglement entropy in two-dimensional conformal field theories with a gravitational anomaly. In theories with gravity duals, this anomaly is holographically represented by a gravitational Chern-Simons term in the bulk action. We show that the anomaly broadens the Ryu-Takayanagi minimal worldline into a ribbon, and that the anomalous contribution to the CFT entanglement entropy is given by the twist in this ribbon. The entanglement functional may also be interpreted as the worldline action for a spinning particle -- that is, an anyon -- in three-dimensional curved spacetime. We demonstrate that the minimization of this action results in the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Dixon equations of motion for a spinning particle in three dimensions. We work out several simple examples and demonstrate agreement with CFT calculations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1405.2792,
  title  = {Holographic entanglement entropy and gravitational anomalies},
  author = {Alejandra Castro and Stephane Detournay and Nabil Iqbal and Eric Perlmutter},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.2792},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

29 pages + Appendices, 4 figures