Entanglement islands in higher dimensions

TL;DR

This paper numerically constructs a five-dimensional AdS geometry demonstrating that the concept of entanglement islands, previously shown in two-dimensional models, extends to higher dimensions, aiding in resolving the black hole information paradox.

Contribution

It provides the first numerical construction of higher-dimensional geometries with entanglement islands, generalizing previous two-dimensional results to five dimensions.

Findings

Numerical construction of a 5D asymptotically AdS geometry with a boundary Hartle-Hawking state.

Identification of extremal surfaces indicating the presence or absence of islands.

Resolution of the information paradox in higher dimensions through the presence of islands.

Abstract

It has been suggested in recent work that the Page curve of Hawking radiation can be recovered using computations in semi-classical gravity provided one allows for "islands" in the gravity region of quantum systems coupled to gravity. The explicit computations so far have been restricted to black holes in two-dimensional Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. In this note, we numerically construct a five-dimensional asymptotically AdS geometry whose boundary realizes a four-dimensional Hartle-Hawking state on an eternal AdS black hole in equilibrium with a bath. We also numerically find two types of extremal surfaces: ones that correspond to having or not having an island. The version of the information paradox involving the eternal black hole exists in this setup, and it is avoided by the presence of islands. Thus, recent computations exhibiting islands in two-dimensional gravity generalize to higher dimensions as well.