Imprints of dynamical phases in semiclassical entanglement entropy in 2D CFT

Abstract

We study the time evolution of semiclassical entanglement entropy in a class of $sl(2,\mathbb{R})$ driven states in a large $c$ conformal field theory (CFT) in $1+1$ spacetime dimensions. Upon varying the parameters of the drive, we find that the entanglement entropy exhibits the signature of the dynamical phases of the driven CFT. We further study the holographic dual of this CFT where the excited states of a minimally coupled scalar in $Ad{S}_3$ induce a backreaction that modifies the background geometry. We compute the back reacted geometry by solving Einstein's equation with the expectation value of the stress tensor in the coherent state as the source term. Subsequently, we calculate the time evolution of the perturbed minimal area and the bulk entanglement entropy at $O(G_N^0)$, up to the sub-leading order in short distance approximation. These results match the CFT entanglement entropy in the boundary at $O(c^0)$, and serve as a nontrivial check of the Faulkner-Lewkowycz-Maldacena (FLM) conjecture for the first quantum correction of holographic entanglement entropy. The details of the check has been provided in the accompanying ancillary notebook.

30 pages+ appendices, 7 figures and one ancillary Mathematica notebook