paper

Entanglement entropies of equilibrated pure states in quantum many-body systems and gravity

arXiv:2008.01089 · doi:10.1103/PRXQuantum.2.010344

Abstract

We develop a universal approximation for the Renyi entropies of a pure state at late times in a non-integrable many-body system, which macroscopically resembles an equilibrium density matrix. The resulting expressions are fully determined by properties of the associated equilibrium density matrix, and are hence independent of the details of the initial state, while also being manifestly consistent with unitary time-evolution. For equilibrated pure states in gravity systems, such as those involving black holes, this approximation gives a prescription for calculating entanglement entropies using Euclidean path integrals which is consistent with unitarity and hence can be used to address the information loss paradox of Hawking. Applied to recent models of evaporating black holes and eternal black holes coupled to baths, it provides a derivation of replica wormholes, and elucidates their mathematical and physical origins. In particular, it shows that replica wormholes can arise in a system with a fixed Hamiltonian, without the need for ensemble averages.

54 pages, 21 figures, v2: minor error corrected and references added

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