Generalized Replica Manifolds I: Surgery and Averaging

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autore principale: Radwan, Mohamed Hany
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866908608974815232
author Radwan, Mohamed Hany
author_facet Radwan, Mohamed Hany
contents We develop a simple framework for implementing a type of path integral "surgery" via correlated averaging over codimension-one defects/extended operators. This technique is used to construct replica manifolds by effectively cutting and gluing the path integral without explicitly modifying the underlying manifold. We argue that restricted forms of this averaging can be used to calculate Rényi entanglement entropy corresponding to a wide range of choices of subsystem partitioning. When the entanglement entropy being calculated in this way does not simply correspond to entanglement between subregions, we call the resulting objects from this surgery "generalized replica manifolds". We show how this framework extends to gauge theories and, in particular, how in non-Abelian gauge theories it establishes a connection between replica calculations of a gauge-invariant notion of entanglement between color degrees of freedom and a quiver gauge-theory structure. Finally, we discuss how this framework appears in the context of large-$N$ theories and holography, with a bird's-eye view of potential future directions. This paper focuses on averaging over operators that form a representation of the Heisenberg group; a subsequent paper will extend the framework to more general operator averaging.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_20900
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Generalized Replica Manifolds I: Surgery and Averaging
Radwan, Mohamed Hany
High Energy Physics - Theory
We develop a simple framework for implementing a type of path integral "surgery" via correlated averaging over codimension-one defects/extended operators. This technique is used to construct replica manifolds by effectively cutting and gluing the path integral without explicitly modifying the underlying manifold. We argue that restricted forms of this averaging can be used to calculate Rényi entanglement entropy corresponding to a wide range of choices of subsystem partitioning. When the entanglement entropy being calculated in this way does not simply correspond to entanglement between subregions, we call the resulting objects from this surgery "generalized replica manifolds". We show how this framework extends to gauge theories and, in particular, how in non-Abelian gauge theories it establishes a connection between replica calculations of a gauge-invariant notion of entanglement between color degrees of freedom and a quiver gauge-theory structure. Finally, we discuss how this framework appears in the context of large-$N$ theories and holography, with a bird's-eye view of potential future directions. This paper focuses on averaging over operators that form a representation of the Heisenberg group; a subsequent paper will extend the framework to more general operator averaging.
title Generalized Replica Manifolds I: Surgery and Averaging
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.20900