Does connected wedge imply distillable entanglement?

Abstract: The Ryu-Takayanagi formula predicts that two spatially separated boundary subsystems can have large mutual information if their entanglement wedge is connected in the bulk. However, the nature of this mysterious entanglement remains elusive. Here, we propose that i) there is no LO-distillable entanglement at the leading order in $1/G_{N}$ for holographic mixed states, suggesting the absence of bipartite entanglement, and ii) one-shot LOCC-distillable entanglement with holographic measurements is given by locally accessible information, which is related to the entanglement wedge cross section $E^W$ involving the (third) purifying system. In particular, we demonstrate that a connected wedge does not necessarily imply nonzero distillable entanglement with holographic measurements at the leading order. Thus, it is an example of NPT bound entanglement in one-shot holographic settings. Our proposals have parallel statements for Haar random states which may be of independent interest. We will also discuss potential physical mechanisms for subleading effects, namely i) holographic scattering, ii) traversable wormholes, and iii) Planck scale effects. Finally, we establish a holographic monogamy relation between distillable entanglement and entanglement of formation $E_F$ whose dual we propose is $E^W$.