Negative energy enhancement in layered holographic conformal field theories

TL;DR

This paper investigates how layered holographic conformal field theories can exhibit large negative vacuum energy densities, especially near critical interface tensions, revealing novel energy properties in such systems.

Contribution

It introduces a holographic model for layered CFTs with dynamical interfaces, showing conditions for negative energy densities and their relation to interface tension and transition temperatures.

Findings

Negative energy densities can be arbitrarily large near critical tension.

Layered CFTs with more degrees of freedom can have anomalously negative vacuum energy.

High negative energy densities correlate with increased transition temperatures.

Abstract

Using a holographic model, we study quantum field theories with a layer of one CFT surrounded by another CFT, on either a periodic or an infinite direction. We study the vacuum energy density in each CFT as a function of the central charges, the thickness of the layer(s), and the properties of the interfaces between the CFTs. The dual spacetimes in the holographic model include two regions separated by a dynamical interface with some tension. For two or more spatial dimensions, we find that a layer of CFT with more degrees of freedom than the surrounding one can have an anomalously large negative vacuum energy density for certain types of interfaces. The negative energy density (or null-energy density in the direction perpendicular to the interface) becomes arbitrarily large for fixed layer width when the tension of the bulk interface approaches a lower critical value. We argue that in cases where we have large negative energy density, we also have an anomalously high transition temperature to the high-temperature thermal state.