Speaker: Stefan Hollands (Univ. Leipzig)

Title: Modular theory and entanglement in CFT

Time/Date: 4:45-6:15pm, November 20 (Wed.), 2019

Room: 122

Abstract: Modular theory goes back to the work by Tomita and Takesaki and is one of the main tools in operator algebra theory. Almost from the beginning of this theory, the connection to various notions of entropy was noted, and worked out, by Araki. In a parallel development, this theory appeared in quantum field theory in the connection with the Unruh-effect (Bisognano-Wichmann theorem). In recent times there has been enormous interest in the concept of entanglement in quantum field theory, which is directly related to Araki's notions of entropy and thereby to modular theory. In this talk I will describe recent work of mine on how to actually calculate the modular flow, and related information theoretic quantities, in chiral conformal quantum field theory. Specifically, I will describe what form this flow takes for a multi-component region (disjoint intervals).