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Entanglement Entropy in CFT2

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Physics ((LNP,volume 931))

Abstract

The description of the general methodology for computing entanglement entropy in Chap. 2 gives a clean, albeit abstract prescription. As with any functional integral, it helps to develop some intuition as to where the computation can be carried out explicitly. For a general QFT in d > 2 the computation appears intractable in all but the simplest of cases of free field theories [42]. However, it turns out to be possible to leverage the power of conformal symmetry in d = 2, to explicitly compute entanglement entropy in some situations [18]. In fact, the revival of interest in entanglement entropy can be traced to the work of Cardy and Calabrese [57] who re-derived the results of [58] and went on to then explore its utility as a diagnostic of interesting physical phenomena in interacting systems. We will give a brief overview of this discussion, adapting it both to the general ideas outlined above and simultaneously preparing the group for our holographic considerations in the sequel.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a review of analysis of entanglement entropy in free field theories, refer to [59].

  2. 2.

    Higher-dimensional CFTs are similarly described by their operator spectrum and OPE coefficients.

  3. 3.

    See [63] for an abstract discussion of how one can use orbifold technology to understand the computation of Rényi entropies. The original references on orbifolds [64, 65] are a great resource for learning about the technology we employ below.

  4. 4.

    While a general genus-g Riemann surface has 3g − 3 moduli, the branched cover Rényi geometries are a special subclass with the moduli being determined by the 2m − 3 cross-ratios.

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Rangamani, M., Takayanagi, T. (2017). Entanglement Entropy in CFT2 . In: Holographic Entanglement Entropy. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 931. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52573-0_3

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