Abstract
We study the vacuum-subtracted von Neumann entropy of a segment on a null plane. We argue that for interacting quantum field theories in more than two dimensions, this entropy has a simple expression in terms of the expectation value of the null components of the stress tensor on the null interval. More explicitly, , where is a theory-dependent function. This function is constrained by general properties of quantum relative entropy. These constraints are enough to extend our recent free field proof of the quantum Bousso bound to the interacting case. This unusual expression for the entropy as the expectation value of an operator implies that the entropy is equal to the modular energy, , where is the modular Hamiltonian. We explain how this equality is compatible with nonvanishing . Finally, we explicitly compute the function for theories that have a gravity dual.
- Received 17 September 2014
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.91.084030
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