arXiv subjects

Zixia Wei

Publications and source records attributed to Zixia Wei.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Monitoring a de Sitter universe through an anti-de Sitter window

We propose that AdS$_3$ gravity coupled to dS$_2$ end-of-the-world branes is dual to a unitary holographic CFT$_2$ with non-unitary conformal boundary conditions. These boundary conditions have complex $g$-functions and appear in conjugate pairs. The associated gravitational path integral admits no real saddles, but does admit complex saddles. We show that an AdS$_3$ black hole microstate with a dS$_2$ brane behind the horizon corresponds to the unitary time evolution of a pure CFT state prepared by a Euclidean path integral on a cylinder with such boundary conditions. The construction predicts a boundary-condition-changing primary with $h=-c/8$, which resides in the boundary sector rather than the bulk spectrum and is therefore compatible with unitarity of the underlying CFT. This realizes dS holography as state preparation in a unitary AdS/CFT Hilbert space.

hep-th↗

arXiv2026

Exactly solvable non-unitary conformal interfaces in unitary CFTs

We construct directly on the lattice a class of non-unitary interfaces that are both exactly conformal and exactly solvable, and establish their corresponding boundary and interface conformal field theory (CFT) descriptions. The construction is obtained by analytically continuing the scattering data of known exact unitary conformal interfaces on the lattice, yielding an $SL(2,\mathbb C)$-parametrized family, which is non-compact and breaks probability-current conservation. Exploiting the exact lattice-continuum correspondence, we derive the conformal boundary states in the folded picture. We show that a proper definition of the Hilbert space in the closed-string channel requires the incoming and outgoing boundary states to be specified independently by boundary data associated with a pair of dual biorthogonal bases, in close analogy with the right and left eigenvectors of a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. This requirement determines a consistent CFT construction of non-unitary boundaries and interfaces, and leads to a non-unitary generalization of the conventional Cardy's condition for unitary boundary CFT. Beyond their formal construction, these non-unitary interfaces are shown to exhibit logarithmic entanglement scaling governed by an effective central charge that is generally complex. For the $SU(1,1)$ subclass, the effective central charge remains real but grows without bound as the transmission coefficient increases. This result is demonstrated through analytical and numerical lattice calculations, as well as an interface CFT analysis in the unfolded picture. Finally, we present a general CFT analysis of a class of global quantum quenches whose initial states are prepared with non-unitary boundaries. We relate their effective temperature to the conformal dimension of the boundary-condition-changing operators associated with non-unitary boundary conditions.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2026

Pure states for subregions in gravity and their entanglement entropy

It is proposed that spatial subregions in quantum gravity can be assigned pure states, rather than mixed reduced density matrices. The state is prepared by a partially frozen gravitational path integral, in which a spacetime subregion containing the spatial subregion is fixed while the field configurations and ambient geometry are summed over. In the semiclassical regime, we further propose a holographic prescription for the entanglement entropy of bipartitions of this state, with a frozen-region analogue of the homology constraint. The prescription satisfies nontrivial self-consistency conditions, including strong subadditivity, complementarity, and entanglement wedge nesting, and reproduces several known entropy formulas in holography and gravity as special cases. The construction suggests an observer-dependent entanglement wedge labeled by the frozen subregion.

hep-th↗

arXiv2026

Crosscap Quenches and Entanglement Evolution

Understanding the mechanisms by which complex correlations emerge through the dynamics of quantum many-body systems remains a fundamental challenge in modern physics. To address this, quench dynamics starting from nonthermal states have been extensively studied, leading to significant progress. In this paper, we propose a novel quench protocol, termed the "crosscap quench", to investigate how highly structured thermal pure states relax into typical ones. We begin by analyzing conformal field theories (CFTs) and derive universal features in the time evolution of the entanglement entropy. Furthermore, leveraging the AdS/CFT correspondence, we study holographic CFTs, providing an analytically tractable example in chaotic CFTs. Finally, we validate these findings through numerical simulations in both nonintegrable and integrable quantum spin systems.

hep-th↗

arXiv2026

A Tale of Two Hartle-Hawking Wave Functions: Fully Gravitational vs Partially Frozen

We revisit the Hartle-Hawking wave function in AdS spacetime, where natural spatial slices are open and require an additional spacetime boundary. This leads to two constructions: a fully gravitational wave function, in which the boundary configuration is integrated over, and a partially frozen one, in which it is fixed, as in AdS/CFT. To illustrate the fully gravitational construction, we explicitly analyze it in AdS$_3$ Einstein gravity and AdS$_2$ Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. We then evaluate the one-loop correction to the hyperbolic-ball partition function in $D$-dimensional AdS Einstein gravity, expected to give the leading contribution to the wave-function norm. We demonstrate that the fully gravitational hyperbolic ball partition function, where the boundary fluctuates, develops a nontrivial one-loop phase of $(\mp i)^{D+1}$, analogous to that of the sphere partition function in dS gravity. By contrast, the partially frozen partition function, where the boundary is fixed, remains real and positive. Motivated by this AdS comparison, we conversely investigate a partially frozen dS sphere partition function where the metric on an equator is fixed, finding that its one-loop phase cancels nontrivially. Our results suggest that the phase problem is controlled by whether the gravitational path integral is fully dynamical or partially frozen.

hep-th↗

arXiv2026

No boundary density matrix in elliptic de Sitter dS/$\mathbb{Z}_2$

Elliptic de Sitter (dS) spacetime dS$/\mathbb{Z}_2$ is a non-time-orientable spacetime obtained by imposing an antipodal identification to global dS. Unlike QFT on global dS, whose vacuum state can be prepared by a no-boundary Euclidean path integral, the Euclidean elliptic dS does not define a wavefunction in the usual sense. We propose instead that the path integral on the Euclidean elliptic dS defines a no-boundary density matrix. As an explicit example, we study the free Dirac fermion CFT in two-dimensional elliptic dS and analytically compute the von Neumann and the Rényi entropies of this density matrix. The calculation reduces to correlation functions of vertex operators on non-orientable surfaces. As a by-product, we compute the time evolution of entanglement entropy following a crosscap quench in free Dirac fermion CFT. We also comment on a striking feature of free QFT in elliptic dS: its global Hilbert space is one-dimensional, wheres the Hilbert space associated to each observer is a nontrivial Fock space.

hep-th↗

arXiv2026

CFT derivation of entanglement phase transition in pseudo entropy

In this paper, we discuss the entanglement phase transition of pseudo entropy in CFTs. We focus on the case where the in-state and the out-state are different boundary states related by boundary condition changing operators. We compute the pseudo entropy with BCFT methods and find a phase transition with respect to the conformal weight of the boundary condition changing operators. For holographic CFTs, we confirm that the CFT results match that evaluated in AdS.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Universality of Shallow Global Quenches in Critical Spin Chains

Measuring universal data in the strongly correlated regime of quantum critical points remains a fundamental objective for quantum simulators. In foundational work, Calabrese and Cardy demonstrated how this data governs the dynamics of certain global quenches to 1+1-dimensional conformal field theories. While the quasiparticle picture they introduce has been widely successful in both theory and experiment, their seminal prediction that the critical exponents are simply encoded in the relaxation rates of local observables is more challenging to investigate experimentally; in particular, the specific initial state required for their analysis is generated via imaginary time evolution. In this work, we examine the critical quench dynamics of local observables from two types of readily-accessible initial conditions: ground states and finite-temperature ensembles. We identify universal scaling collapses and scaling functions in both cases, utilizing a combination of conformal perturbation theory and tensor network numerics. For the finite-temperature quenches, we determine a regime in which the conformal field theory results are recovered, thereby allowing universal quantum critical data to be extracted from realistic quenches.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Wormholes with Ends of the World

We study classical wormhole solutions in 3D gravity with end-of-the-world (EOW) branes, conical defects, kinks, and punctures. These solutions compute statistical averages of an ensemble of boundary conformal field theories (BCFTs) related to universal asymptotics of OPE data extracted from the 2D conformal bootstrap. Conical defects connect BCFT bulk operators; branes join BCFT boundary intervals with identical boundary conditions; kinks (1D defects along branes) link BCFT boundary operators; and punctures (0D defects) are endpoints where conical defects terminate on branes. We provide evidence for a correspondence between the gravity theory and the ensemble. In particular, the agreement of the $g$-function dependence results from an underlying topological aspect of the on-shell EOW brane action, from which a BCFT analogue of the Schlenker-Witten theorem also follows.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Observers and Timekeepers: From the Page-Wootters Mechanism to the Gravitational Path Integral

Quantum gravity in a closed universe faces two a priori distinct yet seemingly related issues: the problem of time and the fact that its Hilbert space dimension is one. Both have been argued to be resolvable by formulating physics relative to an observer. Using a simple gravitational path integral model, we explain that the two issues arise from two distinct non-perturbative effects: the former from summing over metrics and the latter from summing over topologies. We then revisit the Page-Wootters mechanism, one of the earliest frameworks for formulating quantum mechanics relative to an observer, see how it applies to both issues, and introduce some new ingredients. In particular, we emphasize a hierarchy between an observer and a timekeeper. An observer is a subsystem of the universe whose specification results in a nontrivial Hilbert space, while a timekeeper is an observer with a specified history that can be used as a reference for the time of the environment and experiences a nontrivial time evolution. Finally, we propose a method for incorporating observers and timekeepers into the gravitational path integral and show that implementing a timekeeper in this way furnishes an observer-dependent generalization of holography.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Holographic Dual of Crosscap Conformal Field Theory

We propose a holographic dual for 2D CFT defined on closed non-orientable manifolds, such as the real projective plane $\mathbb{RP}^2$ and the Klein bottle $\mathbb{K}^2$. Such CFT can be constructed by introducing antipodally identified cuttings, i.e. crosscaps, to a sphere and hence called crosscap CFT (XCFT). The gravity dual is AdS$_3$ spacetime with dS$_2$ end-of-the-world branes. In particular, the Lorentzian spacetime with a global dS$_2$ brane is dual to the unitary time evolution of a crosscap state in CFT, post-selected on the CFT ground state. We compute the holographic $\mathbb{RP}^2$ partition function (or the $p$-function), one-point function, and $\mathbb{K}^2$ partition function, and see that they successfully reproduce the XCFT results. We also show a holographic $p$-theorem as an application.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Localized Black Holes in AdS$_3$: What Happens Below c/12 Stays Below c/12

We construct asymptotically AdS$_3 \times$S$^3 \times$T$^4$ black holes that are localized on the S$^3$ and co-exist with the BTZ black hole at small positive energies. These black holes dominate the microcanonical ensemble for $ E\leq \frac{c}{24}\left(5\sqrt{5}-11\right)$, suggesting they could represent the endpoint of the BTZ instability at low energies. Remarkably, they also exist at negative energies, where pure Einstein gravity predicts no states and the BTZ black hole does not exist. They appear in the spectrum immediately above $-\frac{c}{12}$ (the energy of global AdS$_3$), and their entropy is a significant fraction (up to 1/2) of the entropy of the free orbifold CFT at negative energies. Our solutions exist in an energy window outside the universal predictable range of the modular bootstrap in large-$c$ CFT$_2$ and, despite their microcanonical dominance, do not dominate in the canonical ensemble. To calculate the holographic entanglement entropy of our solutions, we propose the first recipe that can be applied to arbitrary geometries asymptotic to AdS$_3$ times an internal manifold, and depend non-trivially on its coordinates. We find that our new geometries have an entanglement entropy nearly identical to that of the BTZ black hole with the same energy, despite having different horizon structures. However, they can be distinguished by non-minimal extremal surfaces, which unveil finer details of the microstructure.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Counting atypical black hole microstates from entanglement wedges

Disentangled black hole microstates are atypical states in holographic CFTs whose gravity duals do not have smooth horizons. If there exist sufficiently many disentangled microstates to account for the entire black hole entropy, then any black hole microstate can be written as a superposition of states without smooth horizons. We show that there exist sufficiently many disentangled microstates to account for almost the entire black hole entropy of a large AdS black hole at the semiclassical limit $G_N\rightarrow 0$. In addition, we also argue that in generic quantum many-body systems with short-ranged interactions, there exist sufficiently many area law states in the microcanonical subspace to account for almost the entire thermodynamic entropy in the standard thermodynamic limit. Area law states are atypical since a typical state should contain volume law entanglement. Furthermore, we also present an explicit way to construct such a set of area law states, and argue that the same construction may also be used to construct disentangled states.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Efficient Simulation of Low Temperature Physics in One-Dimensional Gapless Systems

We discuss the computational efficiency of the finite temperature simulation with the minimally entangled typical thermal states (METTS). To argue that METTS can be efficiently represented as matrix product states, we present an analytic upper bound for the average entanglement Renyi entropy of METTS for Renyi index $0<q\leq 1$. In particular, for 1D gapless systems described by CFTs, the upper bound scales as $\mathcal{O}(c N^0 \log β)$ where $c$ is the central charge and $N$ is the system size. Furthermore, we numerically find that the average Renyi entropy exhibits a universal behavior characterized by the central charge and is roughly given by half of the analytic upper bound. Based on these results, we show that METTS provide a significant speedup compared to employing the purification method to analyze thermal equilibrium states at low temperatures in 1D gapless systems.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2024

Magic Class and the Convolution Group

The classification of many-body quantum states plays a fundamental role in the study of quantum phases of matter. In this work, we propose an approach to classify quantum states by introducing the concept of magic class. In addition, we introduce an efficient coarse-graining procedure to extract the magic feature of states, which we call the ``convolution group (CG).'' We classify quantum states into different magic classes using the fixed points of the CG and circuit equivalence. We also show that magic classes can be characterized by symmetries and the quantum entropy of the CG fixed points. Finally, we discuss the connection between the CG and the renormalization group. These results may provide new insight into the study of the state classification and quantum phases of matter.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Universal entanglement signatures of interface conformal field theories

An interface connecting two distinct conformal field theories hosts rich critical behaviors. In this work, we investigate the entanglement properties of such critical interface theories for probing the underlying universality. As inspired by holographic perspectives, we demonstrate vital features of various entanglement measures regarding such interfaces based on several paradigmatic lattice models. Crucially, for two subsystems adjacent at the interface, the mutual information and the reflected entropy exhibit identical leading logarithmic scaling, giving an effective interface central charge that takes the same value as the smaller central charge of the two conformal field theories. Our work demonstrates that the entanglement measure offers a powerful tool to explore the rich physics in critical interface theories.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2023

Entanglement Phase Transition in Holographic Pseudo Entropy

In this paper, we present holographic descriptions of entanglement phase transition using AdS/BCFT. First, we analytically calculate the holographic pseudo entropy in the AdS/BCFT model with a brane localized scalar field and show the entanglement phase transition behavior where the time evolution of entropy changes from the linear growth to the trivial one via a critical logarithmic evolution. In this model, the imaginary valued scalar field localized on the brane controls the phase transition, which is analogous to the amount of projections in the measurement induced phase transition. Next, we study the AdS/BCFT model with a brane localized gauge field, where the phase transition looks different in that there is no logarithmically evolving critical point. Finally, we discuss a bulk analog of the above model by considering a double Wick rotation of the Janus solution. We compute the holographic pseudo entropy in this model and show that the entropy grows logarithmically.

hep-th↗

arXiv2023

SVD Entanglement Entropy

In this paper, we introduce a new quantity called SVD entanglement entropy. This is a generalization of entanglement entropy in that it depends on two different states, as in pre- and post-selection processes. This SVD entanglement entropy takes non-negative real values and is bounded by the logarithm of the Hilbert space dimensions. The SVD entanglement entropy can be interpreted as the average number of Bell pairs distillable from intermediates states. We observe that the SVD entanglement entropy gets enhanced when the two states are in the different quantum phases in an explicit example of the transverse-field Ising model. Moreover, we calculate the Rényi SVD entropy in various field theories and examine holographic calculations using the AdS/CFT correspondence.

hep-th↗