The entanglement entropy of an arbitrary spacetime region A in a three-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) contains a constant universal coefficient, F(A). For general theories, the value of F(A) is minimized when A is a round disk, F_{0}, and in that case it coincides with the Euclidean free energy on the sphere. We conjecture that, for general CFTs, the quantity F(A)/F_{0} is bounded above by the free scalar field result and below by the Maxwell field one.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe establish the irreversibility of renormalization group flows on a pointlike defect inserted in a d-dimensional Lorentzian conformal field theory. We identify the impurity entropy g with the quantum relative entropy in two equivalent ways. One involves a null deformation of the Cauchy surface, and the other is given in terms of a local quench protocol.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe use strong subadditivity of entanglement entropy, Lorentz invariance, and the Markov property of the vacuum state of a conformal field theory to give new proof of the irreversibility of the renormalization group in d=4 space-time dimensions-the a theorem. This extends the proofs of the c and F theorems in dimensions d=2 and d=3 based on vacuum entanglement entropy, and gives a unified picture of all known irreversibility theorems in relativistic quantum field theory.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA simple argument shows that negative energy cannot be isolated far away from positive energy in a conformal field theory and strongly constrains its possible dispersal. This is also required by consistency with the Bekenstein bound written in terms of the positivity of relative entropy. We prove a new form of the Bekenstein bound based on the monotonicity of the relative entropy, involving a "free" entropy enclosed in a region which is highly insensitive to space-time entanglement, and show that it further improves the negative energy localization bound.
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