Journal of High Energy Physics (Nov 2023)

Universality of effective central charge in interface CFTs

  • Andreas Karch,
  • Yuya Kusuki,
  • Hirosi Ooguri,
  • Hao-Yu Sun,
  • Mianqi Wang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2023)126
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2023, no. 11
pp. 1 – 24

Abstract

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Abstract When an interface connects two CFTs, the entanglement entropy between the two CFTs is determined by a quantity called the effective central charge. The effective central charge does not have a simple form in terms of the central charges of the two CFTs, but intricately depends on the transmissive properties of the interface. In this article, we examine universal properties of the effective central charge. We first clarify how the effective central charge appears when considering general subsystems of the interface CFT. Then using this result and ideas used in the proof of the c-theorem, we provide a universal upper bound on the effective central charge. In past studies, the effective central charge was defined only in two dimensions. We propose an analogue of the effective central charge in general dimensions possessing similar universal properties as in two dimensions.

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