English

Subregion Complementarity in AdS/CFT

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-04-23 v3

Abstract

We examine the bulk reconstruction in the AdS/CFT correspondence. We demonstrate that the subregion duality fails to hold, highlighting discrepancies between operators in causal wedge reconstruction and those in global reconstruction at the leading order in the large NN limit. We argue the invalidity of the entanglement wedge reconstruction based on the holographic quantum error correction code, attributing it to non-perturbative finite NN effects or quantum gravity effects due to the trans-Planckian modes near the horizon. Nevertheless, we propose the subregion complementarity, illustrating that different CFT operators can describe a bulk subregion. While we expect that this complementarity is valid outside the horizon in general eternal black holes, it is inapplicable for single-sided black holes where a semi-classical description at the stretched horizon is absent.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2309.04231,
  title  = {Subregion Complementarity in AdS/CFT},
  author = {Sotaro Sugishita and Seiji Terashima},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.04231},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

42 pages, 5 figure, v2: includes corrections to discussion on subregion complementarity, minor corrections, v3: clarification added

R2 v1 2026-06-28T12:16:05.168Z