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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (2 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2012)

We investigate the physical content of three-dimensional higher spin gravity, a sophisticated toy model of high energy string theory. Starting from spin-3 gravity and working our way toward the theory of an infinite tower of higher spins coupled to matter, we show how to use higher spin gauge invariance to consistently generalize ordinary conceptions of black holes. We also consider the dynamics of scalar fields in nontrivial higher spin backgrounds. In view of the AdS/CFT correspondence as applied to certain vector-like conformal field theories with extended conformal symmetry, we make several successful comparisons of bulk and boundary computations.

    Cover page: Spacetime and Matter in Three-Dimensional Higher Spin Gravity
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Davis Previously Published Works (2015)
    We explore properties of the universal terms in the entanglement entropy and logarithmic negativity in 4D conformal field theories, aiming to clarify the ways in which they behave like the analogous entanglement measures in quantum mechanics. We show that, unlike entanglement entropy in finite-dimensional systems, the sign of the universal part of entanglement entropy is indeterminate. In particular, if and only if the central charges obey a>c, the entanglement across certain classes of entangling surfaces can become arbitrarily negative, depending on the geometry and topology of the surface. The negative contribution is proportional to the product of a-c and the genus of the surface. Similarly, we show that in a>c theories, the logarithmic negativity does not always exceed the entanglement entropy.
      Cover page: Central Charges and the Sign of Entanglement in 4D Conformal Field TheoriesCreative Commons 'BY-NC-SA' version 4.0 license
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