English

Null Geodesics, Local CFT Operators and AdS/CFT for Subregions

High Energy Physics - Theory 2013-12-18 v2

Abstract

We investigate the nature of the AdS/CFT duality between a subregion of the bulk and its boundary. In global AdS/CFT in the classical G_N=0 limit, the duality reduces to a boundary value problem that can be solved by restricting to one-point functions of local operators in the CFT. We show that the solution of this boundary value problem depends continuously on the CFT data. In contrast, the AdS-Rindler subregion cannot be continuously reconstructed from local CFT data restricted to the associated boundary region. Motivated by related results in the mathematics literature, we posit that a continuous bulk reconstruction is only possible when every null geodesic in a given bulk subregion has an endpoint on the associated boundary subregion. This suggests that a subregion duality for AdS-Rindler, if it exists, must involve nonlocal CFT operators in an essential way.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1209.4641,
  title  = {Null Geodesics, Local CFT Operators and AdS/CFT for Subregions},
  author = {Raphael Bousso and Ben Freivogel and Stefan Leichenauer and Vladimir Rosenhaus and Claire Zukowski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1209.4641},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

28 pages, 6 figures; v2: final version for PRD, minor edits and reference added

R2 v1 2026-06-21T22:08:42.454Z