arXiv subjects

Guillem Pérez-Nadal

Publications and source records attributed to Guillem Pérez-Nadal.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Euclidean volume fluctuations in de Sitter quantum gravity

The Euclidean formulation of quantum gravity can be interpreted in terms of a probability distribution over Riemannian manifolds. In the context of de Sitter gravity, the statistics of the total volume according to this distribution is encoded in the dependence of the partition function on the cosmological constant. We use this observation to obtain a probability distribution for the volume from known results and proposals for the de Sitter partition function, in several levels of approximation: saddle point, one loop, an all-loop and a non-perturbative proposal in 3 dimensions, and an exact result in 2 dimensions, in the context of Liouville theory. In all cases we find a reasonable behavior: in the classical limit the distribution concentrates around the classical volume, and it spreads as quantum effects are turned on. We also find as a common trend that, as quantum effects are increased, the probability distribution favors increasingly smaller universes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Entanglement of a chiral scalar on the torus

We compute the entanglement entropy of an interval for a chiral scalar on a circle at an arbitrary temperature. We use the resolvent method, which involves expressing the entropy in terms of the resolvent of a certain operator, and we compute that resolvent by solving a problem that entails finding an analytic function on the complex torus with certain jump conditions at the interval. The resolvent is relevant by itself, since it can be used to compute any function of the reduced density matrix. We illustrate that by also computing all the Rényi entropies for the model.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Modular Hamiltonian and modular flow of massless fermions on a cylinder

We determine explicitly the modular flow and the modular Hamiltonian for massless free fermions in diamonds on a cylinder in 1+1 dimensions. We consider both periodic and antiperiodic boundary conditions, the ground state in the antiperiodic case and the most general family of quasi-free zero-energy ground states in the periodic case, which depend on four parameters and are generally mixed. While for the antiperiodic ground state and one periodic ground state (the maximally mixed zero-temperature state) the modular data is known, our results for the generic ground state in the periodic case are completely new. We find that generically both the modular flow and the modular Hamiltonian are non-local, and we show that in the parametric limit where the state becomes pure the modular data becomes local. Moreover, even in the local case the modular flow generically mixes the two chiralities. This kind of behavior has not been observed previously.

math-ph↗

arXiv2023

3d Quantum Gravity Partition Function at 3 Loops: a brute force computation

The partition function of 3-dimensional quantum gravity has been argued to be 1-loop exact. Here, we verify the vanishing of higher-orders in perturbation theory by explicit computation in the second-order, metric formulation at 3-loops. The number of 1-particle irreducible Feynman diagrams involving both gravitons and ghosts turns out to be 17. Using dimensional regularization, we solve all the diagrams. At 2-loops, we find that all such diagrams vanish separately after regularization. At 3-loops, in contrast, a series of remarkable cancellations between different diagrams takes place, with 9 diagrams beautifully conspiring to yield a vanishing result. Our techniques are suitable to be applied to higher loops as well as to similar computations in higher dimensions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2023

Modular conjugation for multicomponent regions

We consider a massless Dirac field in $1+1$ dimensions, and compute the Tomita-Takesaki modular conjugation corresponding to the vacuum state and a generic multicomponent spacetime region. We do it by analytic continuation from the modular flow, which was computed recently. We use our result to discuss the validity of Haag duality in this model.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Rényi entropies of the massless Dirac field on the torus

We compute the Rényi entropies of the massless Dirac field on the Euclidean torus (the Lorentzian cylinder at non-zero temperature) for arbitrary spatial regions. We do it by the resolvent method, i.e., we express the entropies in terms of the resolvent of a certain operator and then use the explicit form of that resolvent, which was obtained recently. Our results are different in appearance from those already existing in the literature (obtained via the replica trick), but they agree perfectly, as we show numerically for non-integer order and analytically for integer order. We also compute the Rényi mutual information, and find that, for appropriate choices of the parameters, it is non-positive and non-monotonic. This behavior is expected, but it cannot be seen with the simplest known Rényi entropies in quantum field theory because they are proportional to the entanglement entropy.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Entanglement of a chiral fermion on the torus

In this paper we present the detailed calculation of a new modular Hamiltonian, namely that of a chiral fermion on a circle at non-zero temperature. We provide explicit results for an arbitrary collection of intervals, which we discuss at length by checking against known results in different limits and by computing the associated modular flow. We also compute the entanglement entropy, and we obtain a simple expression for it which appears to be more manageable than those already existing in the literature.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Rényi mutual information inequalities from Rindler positivity

Rindler positivity is a property that holds in any relativistic Quantum Field Theory and implies an infinite set of inequalities involving the exponential of the Rényi mutual information $I_n(A_i,\bar{A}_j)$ between $A_i$ and $\bar{A}_j$, where $A_i$ is a spacelike region in the right Rindler wedge and $\bar{A}_j$ is the wedge reflection of $A_j$. We explore these inequalities in order to get local inequalities for $I_n(A,\bar{A})$ as a function of the distance between $A$ and its mirror region $\bar{A}$. We show that the assumption, based on the cluster property of the vacuum, that $I_n$ goes to zero when the distance goes to infinity, implies the more stringent and simple condition that $F_n\equiv{e}^{(n-1)I_n}$ should be a completely monotonic function of the distance, meaning that all the even (odd) derivatives are non-negative (non-positive). In the case of a CFT in 1+1 dimensions, we show that conformal invariance implies stronger conditions, including a sort of monotonicity of the Rényi mutual information for pairs of intervals. An application of these inequalities to obtain constraints for the OPE coefficients of the $4-$point function of certain twist operators is also discussed.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Boundary-to-bulk maps for AdS causal wedges and RG flow

We consider the problem of defining spacelike-supported boundary-to-bulk propagators in AdS$_{d+1}$ down to the unitary bound $Δ=(d-2)/2$. That is to say, we construct the `smearing functions' $K$ of HKLL but with different boundary conditions where both dimensions $Δ_+$ and $Δ_-$ are taken into account. More precisely, we impose Robin boundary conditions, which interpolate between Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions and we give explicit expressions for the distributional kernel $K$ with spacelike support. This flow between boundary conditions is known to be captured in the boundary by adding a double-trace deformation to the CFT. Indeed, we explicitly show that using $K$ there is a consistent and explicit map from a Wightman function of the boundary QFT to a Wightman function of the bulk theory. In order to accomplish this we have to study first the microlocal properties of the boundary two-point function of the perturbed CFT and prove its wavefront set satisfies the microlocal spectrum condition. This permits to assert that $K$ and the boundary two-point function can be multiplied as distributions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Modular Hamiltonian of a chiral fermion on the torus

We consider a chiral fermion at non-zero temperature on a circle (i.e., on a torus in the Euclidean formalism) and compute the modular Hamiltonian corresponding to a subregion of the circle. We do this by a very simple procedure based on the method of images, which is presumably generalizable to other situations. Our result is non-local even for a single interval, and even for Neveu-Schwarz boundary conditions. To the best of our knowledge, there are no previous examples of a modular Hamiltonian with this behavior.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Gravity from entanglement for boundary subregions

We explore several aspects of the relation between gravity and entanglement in the context of AdS/CFT, in the simple setting of 3 bulk dimensions. Specifically, we consider small perturbations of the AdS metric and the CFT vacuum state and study what can be learnt about the metric perturbation from the Ryu-Takayanagi (RT) formula alone. It is well-known that, if the RT formula holds for all boundary spacelike segments, then the metric perturbation satisfies the linearized Einstein equations throughout the bulk. We generalize this result by showing that, if the RT formula holds for all spacelike segments contained in a certain boundary region, then the metric perturbation satisfies the linearized Einstein equations in a corresponding bulk region (in fact, it is completely determined in that region). We also argue that the same is true for small perturbations of the planar BTZ black hole and the CFT thermal state. We discuss the relation between our results and the ideas of subregion-subregion duality, and we point out that our argument also serves as a holographic proof of the linearized RT formula for boundary segments.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Anisotropic Weyl invariance

We consider a non-relativistic free scalar field theory with a type of anisotropic scale invariance in which the number of coordinates "scaling like time" is generically greater than one. We propose the Cartesian product of two curved spaces, the metric of each space being parameterized by the other space, as a notion of curved background to which the theory can be extended. We study this type of geometries, and find a family of extensions of the theory to curved backgrounds in which the anisotropic scale invariance is promoted to a local, Weyl-type symmetry.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Heat kernel methods for Lifshitz theories

We study the one-loop covariant effective action of Lifshitz theories using the heat kernel technique. The characteristic feature of Lifshitz theories is an anisotropic scaling between space and time. This is enforced by the existence of a preferred foliation of space-time, which breaks Lorentz invariance. In contrast to the relativistic case, covariant Lifshitz theories are only invariant under diffeomorphisms preserving the foliation structure. We develop a systematic method to reduce the calculation of the effective action for a generic Lifshitz operator to an algorithm acting on known results for relativistic operators. In addition, we present techniques that drastically simplify the calculation for operators with special properties. We demonstrate the efficiency of these methods by explicit applications.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

Stress tensor fluctuations in de Sitter spacetime

The two-point function of the stress tensor operator of a quantum field in de Sitter spacetime is calculated for an arbitrary number of dimensions. We assume the field to be in the Bunch-Davies vacuum, and formulate our calculation in terms of de Sitter-invariant bitensors. Explicit results for free minimally coupled scalar fields with arbitrary mass are provided. We find long-range stress tensor correlations for sufficiently light fields (with mass m much smaller than the Hubble scale H), namely, the two-point function decays at large separations like an inverse power of the physical distance with an exponent proportional to m^2/H^2. In contrast, we show that for the massless case it decays at large separations like the fourth power of the physical distance. There is thus a discontinuity in the massless limit. As a byproduct of our work, we present a novel and simple geometric interpretation of de Sitter-invariant bitensors for pairs of points which cannot be connected by geodesics.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2008

Backreaction from non-conformal quantum fields in de Sitter spacetime

We study the backreaction on the mean field geometry due to a non-conformal quantum field in a Robertson-Walker background. In the regime of small mass and small deviation from conformal coupling, we compute perturbatively the expectation value of the stress tensor of the field for a variety of vacuum states, and use it to obtain explicitly the semiclassical gravity solutions for isotropic perturbations around de Sitter spacetime, which is found to be stable. Our results show clearly the crucial role of the non-local terms that appear in the effective action: they cancel the contribution from local terms proportional to the logarithm of the scale factor which would otherwise become dominant at late times and prevent the existence of a stable self-consistent de Sitter solution. Finally, the opposite regime of a strongly non-conformal field with a large mass is also considered.

gr-qc↗