for some unitaries U
R
, U
R
on H
R
and H
R
, bases {|α, ii}, {|α, ji} of H
R
1
α
, H
R
1
α
, and some
set of states |χ
α
i ∈ H
R
2
α
⊗H
R
2
α
. Ref. [5] called such codes “operator algebra quantum error-
correcting codes with complementary recovery”, as (2.8) is equivalent to the requirement
that the action of any operator in M
W
on a state in H
φ
can be reproduced by acting on
that state with an operator in R, and correspondingly for M
W
, R.
Since arbitrary unitaries on H
R
1
α
, H
R
1
α
, H
R
2
α
, H
R
2
α
can be absorbed into U
R
, U
R
, the
only independent structure in (2.8) comes from the coefficients in the Schmidt decom-
position of |χ
α
i
R
2
α
R
2
α
, or equivalently the spectrum of eigenvalues of the density matrix
χ
R
2
α
≡ Tr
R
2
α
|χ
α
ihχ
α
| (which is also the spectrum of χ
R
2
α
≡ Tr
R
2
α
|χ
α
ihχ
α
|). This spectrum
is thus the essence of any code, and it is this spectrum that was shown in [21] to be flat at
O(1/G) in states of fixed RT-area; see also [20].
Tracing (2.8) over R yields
ρ
R
=
X
α
p
α
U
R
ρ
R
1
α
⊗ χ
R
2
α
U
†
R
, (2.9)
where ρ
R
1
α
is the image of ρ
W
α
under the isomorphism between H
W
α
and H
R
1
α
. Using (2.6),
the von Neumann entropy of (2.9) immediately takes the form (2.1) with the identification
L
R
=
X
α
S(χ
R
2
α
)1
W
α
W
α
. (2.10)
As described in [20, 21] the entropies of the normalized density matrices ρ
n
R
/(Tr ρ
n
R
) take
a similar form, though they will satisfy (2.1) with the same identification (2.10) if and
only if each χ
R
2
α
satisfies χ
2
R
2
α
∝ χ
R
2
α
; i.e., if each such density matrix is proportional to a
projection operator.
Note that eigenstates of the superselection parameter α are also eigenstates of L
R
. In
holography, it is an interesting question whether α is defined completely by the eigenvalue of
L
R
or whether it contains additional information, but in either case let us simply consider
an eigenstate of α. In such a state, if we for the moment ignore information within a
distance 1/Λ (set by the cutoff scale Λ) away from the bulk entangling surface γ
R
, the
remaining information about bulk quantum fluctuations below the cutoff Λ in a state |ψi
appears to be captured by the amplitudes hψ|α, iji and the details of the state factors
|α, ii
R
1
α
⊗ |α, ji
R
1
α
; indeed, these ingredients suffice to determine the correlation functions
of operators in W ∪ W . The state |χ
α
i
R
2
α
R
2
α
must thus be associated with bulk degrees of
freedom with energies above the cutoff Λ. Together with the sources at the AdS boundary,
such high energy degrees of freedom determine a natural classical background on which
dynamical quantum fluctuations propagate through the condition that the background be
a stationary point of the effective action that arises from integrating them out.
2
It is thus
natural to conjecture that many properties of |χ
α
i
R
2
α
R
2
α
can be computed by using the
cutoff-scale effective action as a corresponding classical variational principle. Indeed, the
identification (2.10) shows that its von Neumann entanglement entropy can be calculated
2
Note that the existence of a preferred classical background determined by a variational principle does
not necessarily imply that quantum fluctuations around this background are small.
– 6 –