Losing the IR: a Holographic Framework for Area Theorems

Abstract: Gravitational area laws are expected to arise as a result of ignorance of "UV gravitational data". In AdS/CFT, the UV/IR correspondence suggests that this data is dual to infrared physics in the CFT. Motivated by these heuristic expectations, we define a precise framework for explaining bulk area laws (in any dimension) by discarding IR CFT data. In (1+1) boundary dimensions, our prescribed mechanism shows explicitly that the boundary dual to these area laws is strong subadditivity of von Neumann entropy. Moreover, such area laws may be of arbitrary (and mixed) signature; thus our framework gives the first entropic explanation of mixed signature area laws (as well as area laws for certain dynamical causal horizons). In general dimension, the framework is easily modified to include bulk quantum corrections, thus giving rise to an infinite family of bulk generalized second laws.