On the Causality Paradox and the Karch-Randall Braneworld as an EFT

Holography on cutoff surfaces can appear to be in tension with causality. For example, as argued by Omiya and Wei [arxiv:2107.01219], double holography seemingly allows for superluminal signalling. In this paper we argue that the brane description of double holography should be treated as an effective theory and demonstrate that causality violations due to faster-than-light communication are not visible above the associated cutoff length scale. This suggests that end-of-the-world brane models are consistent with causality and that the apparent superluminal signalling is a UV effect. Moreover, we argue that short distance non-localities generically give rise to apparent faster-than-light propagation of signals in Anti-de Sitter space. Nonetheless, superluminal signalling indicates that the causal structure on holographic cutoff surfaces needs to be modified. We propose and study three different candidate regions that might replace the domain of dependence in the brane EFT of the Karch-Randall model. These regions are defined by unitarity on the brane, through bulk entanglement wedges and through the nice slice criterion, respectively. In all dimensions, these candidate regions exclude those parts of the domain of dependence which are affected by superluminal signalling. While all three definitions agree in two dimensions, they are different in higher dimensions.Comment: 42 pages, 15 figure

Bounds on gravitational brane couplings and tomography in AdS3 black hole microstates

We study information theoretic properties of planar black hole microstates in 2 + 1 dimensional asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime, modeled by black holes with an end-of-the-world brane behind the horizon. The von Neumann entropy of sufficiently large subregions in the dual CFT exhibits a time-dependent phase, which from a doubly-holographic perspective corresponds to the appearance of quantum extremal islands in the brane description. Considering the case where dilaton gravity is added to the brane, we show that tuning the associated couplings affects the propagation of information in the dual CFT state. By requiring that information theoretic bounds on the growth of entanglement entropy are satisfied in the dual CFT, we can place bounds on the allowed values of the couplings on the brane. Furthermore, we initiate the study of brane tomography, by showing how subleading corrections to the entanglement velocity can be used to learn about the properties of the brane as well as any gravitational dynamics localized on it.Comment: 39 pages, plenty of figures; v2: references adde

On the need for soft dressing

In order to deal with IR divergences arising in QED or perturbative quantum gravity scattering processes, one can either calculate inclusive quantities or use dressed asymptotic states. We consider incoming superpositions of momentum eigenstates and show that in calculations of cross-sections these two approaches yield different answers: in the inclusive formalism no interference occurs for incoming finite superpositions and wavepackets do not scatter at all, while the dressed formalism yields the expected interference terms. This suggests that rather than Fock space states, one should use Faddeev-Kulish-type dressed states to correctly describe physical processes involving incoming superpositions. We interpret this in terms of selection rules due to large U(1) gauge symmetries and BMS supertranslations.Comment: 16+5 pages, 1 figure, v2: typos fixed, version submitted to JHE

Quantum Extremal Islands Made Easy, Part II: Black Holes on the Brane

We discuss holographic models of extremal and non-extremal black holes in contact with a bath in d dimensions, based on a brane world model introduced in arXiv:2006.04851. The main benefit of our setup is that it allows for a high degree of analytic control as compared to previous work in higher dimensions. We show that the appearance of quantum extremal islands in those models is a consequence of the well-understood phase transition of RT surfaces, and does not make any direct reference to ensemble averaging. For non-extremal black holes the appearance of quantum extremal islands has the right behaviour to avoid the information paradox in any dimension. We further show that for these models the calculation of the full Page curve is possible in any dimension. The calculation reduces to numerically solving two ODEs. In the case of extremal black holes in higher dimensions, we find no quantum extremal islands for a wide range of parameters. In two dimensions, our results agree with arXiv:1910.11077 at leading order; however a finite UV cutoff introduced by the brane results in subleading corrections. For example, these corrections result in the quantum extremal surfaces moving further outward from the horizon, and shifting the Page transition to a slightly earlier time.Comment: 84 pages, 24 figure

Aspects of quantum information in quantum field theory and quantum gravity

In this thesis we discuss applications of quantum information theoretic concepts to quantum gravity and the low-energy regime of quantum field theories. The first part of this thesis is concerned with how quantum information spreads in four-dimensional scattering experiments for theories coupled to quantum electrodynamics or perturbative quantum gravity. In these cases, every scattering process is accompanied by the emission of an infinite number of soft photons or gravitons, which cause infrared divergences in the calculation of scattering probabilities. There are two methods to deal with IR divergences: the inclusive and dressed formalisms. We demonstrate that in the late-time limit, independent of the method, the hard outgoing particles are entangled with soft particles in such a way that the reduced density matrix of the hard particles is essentially completely decohered. Furthermore, we show that the inclusive formalism is ill-suited to describe scattering of wavepackets, requiring the use of the dressed formalism. We construct the Hilbert space for QED in the dressed formalism as a representation of the canonical commutation relations of the photon creation/annihilation algebra, and argue that it splits into superselection sectors which correspond to eigenspaces of the generators of large gauge transformations. In the second part of this thesis, we turn to applications of quantum information theoretic concepts in the AdS/CFT correspondence. In pure AdS, we find an explicit formula for the Ryu-Takayanagi (RT) surface for special subregions in the dual conformal field theory, whose entangling surface lie on a light cone. The explicit form of the RT surface is used to give a holographic proof of Markovicity of the CFT vacuum on a light cone. Relative entropy of a state on such special subregions is dual to a novel measure of energy associated with a timelike vector flow between the causal and entanglement wedge. Positivity and monotonicity of relative entropy imply positivity and monotonicity of this energy, which yields a consistency conditions for solutions to quantum gravity.Applied Science, Faculty ofPhysics and Astronomy, Department ofGraduat

On the causality paradox and the Karch-Randall braneworld as an EFT

Abstract Holography on cutoff surfaces can appear to be in tension with causality. For example, as argued by Omiya and Wei [1], double holography seemingly allows for superluminal signalling. In this paper we argue that the brane description of double holography should be treated as an effective theory and demonstrate that causality violations due to faster-than-light communication are not visible above the associated cutoff length scale. This suggests that end-of-the-world brane models are consistent with causality and that the apparent superluminal signalling is a UV effect. Moreover, we argue that short distance non-localities generically give rise to apparent faster-than-light propagation of signals in Anti-de Sitter space. Nonetheless, superluminal signalling indicates that the causal structure on holographic cutoff surfaces needs to be modified. We propose and study three different candidate regions that might replace the domain of dependence in the brane EFT of the Karch-Randall model. These regions are defined by unitarity on the brane, through bulk entanglement wedges and through the nice slice criterion, respectively. In all dimensions, these candidate regions exclude those parts of the domain of dependence which are affected by superluminal signalling. While all three definitions agree in two dimensions, they are different in higher dimensions