Bare Quantum Null Energy Condition

The quantum null energy condition (QNEC) is a conjectured relation between a null version of quantum field theory energy and derivatives of quantum field theory von Neumann entropy. In some cases, divergences cancel between these two terms and the QNEC is intrinsically finite. We study the more general case here where they do not and argue that a QNEC can still hold for bare (unrenormalized) quantities. While the original QNEC applied only to locally stationary null congruences in backgrounds that solve semiclassical theories of quantum gravity, at least in the formal perturbation theory at a small Planck length, the quantum focusing conjecture can be viewed as the special case of our bare QNEC for which the metric is on shell.Comment: 5 pages, no figure; v2: minor corrections; v3: modifications to address referee comments; v4: title and abstract change

Does horizon entropy satisfy a Quantum Null Energy Conjecture?

A modern version of the idea that the area of event horizons gives $4G$ times an entropy is the Hubeny-Rangamani Causal Holographic Information (CHI) proposal for holographic field theories. Given a region $R$ of a holographic QFTs, CHI computes $A/4G$ on a certain cut of an event horizon in the gravitational dual. The result is naturally interpreted as a coarse-grained entropy for the QFT. CHI is known to be finitely greater than the fine-grained Hubeny-Rangamani-Takayanagi (HRT) entropy when $\partial R$ lies on a Killing horizon of the QFT spacetime, and in this context satisfies other non-trivial properties expected of an entropy. Here we present evidence that it also satisfies the quantum null energy condition (QNEC), which bounds the second derivative of the entropy of a quantum field theory on one side of a non-expanding null surface by the flux of stress-energy across the surface. In particular, we show CHI to satisfy the QNEC in 1+1 holographic CFTs when evaluated in states dual to conical defects in AdS$_3$. This surprising result further supports the idea that CHI defines a useful notion of coarse-grained holographic entropy, and suggests unprecedented bounds on the rate at which bulk horizon generators emerge from a caustic. To supplement our motivation, we include an appendix deriving a corresponding coarse-grained generalized second law for 1+1 holographic CFTs perturbatively coupled to dilaton gravity.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures; v2: minor corrections; v3: 30 pages, 6 figures, modifications to address referee comments, one figure adde

Violating the Quantum Focusing Conjecture and Quantum Covariant Entropy Bound in d≥5d\ge 5 dimensions

We study the Quantum Focussing Conjecture (QFC) in curved spacetime. Noting that quantum corrections from integrating out massive fields generally induce a Gauss-Bonnet term, we study Einstein-Hilbert-Gauss-Bonnet gravity and show for $d\ge 5$ spacetime dimensions that weakly-curved solutions can violate the associated QFC for either sign of the Gauss-Bonnet coupling. The nature of the violation shows that -- so long as the Gauss-Bonnet coupling is non-zero -- it will continue to arise for local effective actions containing arbitrary further higher curvature terms, and when gravity is coupled to generic $d\ge 5$ theories of massive quantum fields. The argument also implies violations of a recently-conjectured form of the generalized covariant entropy bound. The possible validity of the QFC and covariant entropy bound in $d\le 4$ spacetime dimensions remains open.Comment: 13 pages, no figure; v2: note adde

A coarse-grained generalized second law for holographic conformal field theories

We consider the universal sector of a $d$-dimensional large-$N$ strongly-interacting holographic CFT on a black hole spacetime background $B$. When our CFT$_d$ is coupled to dynamical Einstein-Hilbert gravity with Newton constant $G_{d}$, the combined system can be shown to satisfy a version of the thermodynamic Generalized Second Law (GSL) at leading order in $G_{d}$. The quantity $S_{CFT} + \frac{A(H_{B, \text{perturbed}})}{4G_{d}}$ is non-decreasing, where $A(H_{B, \text{perturbed}})$ is the (time-dependent) area of the new event horizon in the coupled theory. Our $S_{CFT}$ is the notion of (coarse-grained) CFT entropy outside the black hole given by causal holographic information -- a quantity in turn defined in the AdS$_{d+1}$ dual by the renormalized area $A_{ren}(H_{\rm bulk})$ of a corresponding bulk causal horizon. A corollary is that the fine-grained GSL must hold for finite processes taken as a whole, though local decreases of the fine-grained generalized entropy are not obviously forbidden. Another corollary, given by setting $G_{d} = 0$, states that no finite process taken as a whole can increase the renormalized free energy $F = E_{out} - T S_{CFT} - \Omega J - \Phi Q$, with $T, \Omega, \Phi$ constants set by ${H}_B$. This latter corollary constitutes a 2nd law for appropriate non-compact AdS event horizons.Comment: minor corrections, 18 page

The Quantum Null Energy Condition in Curved Space

The quantum null energy condition (QNEC) is a conjectured bound on components $(T_{kk} = T_{ab} k^a k^b$) of the stress tensor along a null vector $k^a$ at a point $p$ in terms of a second $k$-derivative of the von Neumann entropy $S$ on one side of a null congruence $N$ through $p$ generated by $k^a$. The conjecture has been established for super-renormalizeable field theories at points $p$ that lie on a bifurcate Killing horizon with null tangent $k^a$ and for large-N holographic theories on flat space. While the Koeller-Leichenauer holographic argument clearly yields an inequality for general $(p,k^a)$, more conditions are generally required for this inequality to be a useful QNEC. For $d\le 3$, for arbitrary backgroud metric satisfying the null convergence condition $R_{ab} k^a k^b \ge 0$, we show that the QNEC is naturally finite and independent of renormalization scheme when the expansion $\theta$ and shear $\sigma_{ab}$ of $N$ at point $p$ satisfy $\theta |_p= \dot{\theta}|_p =0$, $\sigma_{ab}|_p=0$. This is consistent with the original QNEC conjecture. But for $d=4,5$ more conditions are required. In particular, we also require the vanishing of additional derivatives and a dominant energy condition. In the above cases the holographic argument does indeed yield a finite QNEC, though for $d\ge6$ we argue these properties to fail even for weakly isolated horizons (where all derivatives of $\theta, \sigma_{ab}$ vanish) that also satisfy a dominant energy condition. On the positive side, a corrollary to our work is that, when coupled to Einstein-Hilbert gravity, $d \le 3$ holographic theories at large $N$ satisfy the generalized second law (GSL) of thermodynamics at leading order in Newton's constant $G$. This is the first GSL proof which does not require the quantum fields to be perturbations to a Killing horizon.Comment: 31 pages, no figure; v2: signs corrected and new comments for d=3; v3: minor corrections; v4: minor modifications to address referee comments; v5: paragraph containing equation (2.13) modifie

Causal holographic information does not satisfy the linearized quantum focusing condition

The Hubeny-Rangamani causal holographic information (CHI) defined by a region $R$ of a holographic quantum field theory (QFT) is a modern version of the idea that the area of event horizons might be related to an entropy. Here the event horizon lives in a dual gravitational bulk theory with Newton's constant $G_{\rm bulk}$, and the relation involves a factor of $4G_{\rm bulk}$. The fact that CHI is bounded below by the von Neumann entropy $S$ suggests that CHI is coarse-grained. Its properties could thus differ markedly from those of $S$. In particular, recent results imply that when $d\le 4$ holographic QFTs are perturbatively coupled to $d$-dimensional gravity, the combined system satisfies the so-called quantum focusing condition (QFC) at leading order in the new gravitational coupling $G_d$ when the QFT entropy is taken to be that of von Neumann. However, by studying states dual to spherical bulk (anti--de Sitter) Schwarschild black holes in the conformal frame for which the boundary is a $(2+1)$-dimensional de Sitter space, we find the QFC defined by CHI is violated even when perturbing about a Killing horizon and using a single null congruence. Since it is known that a generalized second law (GSL) holds in this context, our work demonstrates that the QFC is not required in order for an entropy, or an entropy-like quantity, to satisfy such a GSL.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; v2: modifications to address referee comment

A perturbative perspective on self-supporting wormholes

We describe a class of wormholes that generically become traversable after incorporating gravitational back-reaction from linear quantum fields satisfying appropriate (periodic or anti-periodic) boundary conditions around a non-contractible cycle, but with natural boundary conditions at infinity (i.e., without additional boundary interactions). The class includes both asymptotically flat and asymptotically AdS examples. Simple asymptotically AdS$_3$ or asymptotically AdS$_3 \times S^1$ examples with a single periodic scalar field are then studied in detail. When the examples admit a smooth extremal limit, our perturbative analysis indicates the back-reacted wormhole remains traversable at later and later times as this limit is approached. This suggests that a fully non-perturbative treatment would find a self-supporting eternal traversable wormhole. While the general case remains to be analyzed in detail, the likely relation of the above effect to other known instabilities of extreme black holes may make the construction of eternal traversable wormholes more straightforward than previously expected.Comment: Minor corrections (including fixing a factor of 2 in several formulas/plots

Bag-of-gold spacetimes, Euclidean wormholes, and inflation from domain walls in AdS/CFT

Abstract We use Euclidean path integrals to explore the set of bulk asymptotically AdS spacetimes with good CFT duals. We consider simple bottom-up models of bulk physics defined by Einstein-Hilbert gravity coupled to thin domain walls and restrict to solutions with spherical symmetry. The cosmological constant is allowed to change across the domain wall, modeling more complicated Einstein-scalar systems where the scalar potential has multiple minima. In particular, the cosmological constant can become positive in the interior. However, in the above context, we show that inflating bubbles are never produced by smooth Euclidean saddles to asymptotically AdS path integrals. The obstacle is a direct parallel to the well-known obstruction to creating inflating universes by tunneling from flat space. In contrast, we do find good saddles that create so-called “bag-of-gold” geometries which, in addition to their single asymptotic region, also have an additional large semi-classical region located behind both past and future event horizons. Furthermore, without fine-tuning model parameters, using multiple domain walls we find Euclidean geometries that create arbitrarily large bags-of-gold inside a black hole of fixed horizon size, and thus at fixed Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. Indeed, with our symmetries and in our class of models, such solutions provide the unique semi-classical saddle for appropriately designed (microcanonical) path integrals. This strengthens a classic tension between such spacetimes and the CFT density of states, similar to that in the black hole information problem