Abstract
The quantum null energy condition (QNEC) is a new local energy condition that a general quantum field theory (QFT) is believed to satisfy, relating the classical null energy condition (NEC) to the second functional derivative of the entanglement entropy in the corresponding null direction. We present the first series of explicit computations of QNEC in a strongly coupled QFT, using holography. We consider the vacuum, thermal equilibrium, a homogeneous far-from-equilibrium quench as well as a colliding system that violates NEC. For the vacuum and thermal phase, QNEC is always weaker than NEC. While for the homogeneous quench QNEC is satisfied with a finite gap, we find the interesting result that the colliding system can saturate QNEC, depending on the null direction.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 126016 |
| Journal | Physical Review D |
| Volume | 97 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 15 Jun 2018 |
Funding
We thank Frederic Brünner, Matthew Headrick, Veronika Hubeny, Ville Keränen, Aitor Lewkowycz, David Mateos, Ayan Mukhopadhyay, David Müller, Florian Preis, Anton Rebhan, Stefan Stricker, and Aron Wall for useful discussions. This work is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), Projects No. P27182-N27, No. P28751-N27 and No. DKW1252-N27. W. S. is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-SC0011090 and under the Veni scheme with Project No. 680-47-458 from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). APPENDIX: