Imaginary part of timelike entanglement entropy

TL;DR

This paper investigates the imaginary component of timelike entanglement entropy using field theory techniques, revealing its relation to twist operator commutators and extending the analysis to higher-dimensional strip regions.

Contribution

It introduces a modified formula for the imaginary part of timelike entanglement entropy and explores its universal and complex aspects across different scenarios.

Findings

Imaginary part linked to twist operator commutators.

Derived a generalized formula for various cases.

Extended analysis to higher-dimensional strip regions.

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the imaginary part of the timelike entanglement entropy. In the context of field theory, it is more appropriate to obtain the timelike entanglement entropy through the Wick rotation of the twist operators. It is found that, in certain special cases, the imaginary part of the timelike entanglement entropy is related to the commutator of the twist operator and its first-order temporal derivative. To evaluate these commutators, we employ the operator product expansion of the twist operators, revealing that the commutator is generally universal across most scenarios. However, in more general cases, the imaginary part of the timelike entanglement entropy proves to be more complex. We compute the commutator of the twist operators along with its higher-order temporal derivatives. Utilizing these results, we derive a modified formula for the imaginary part of the timelike entanglement entropy. Furthermore, we extend this formula to the case of strip subregion in higher dimensions. Our analysis shows that for the strip geometry, the imaginary part of the timelike entanglement entropy is solely related to the commutators of the twist operator and its first-order temporal derivative. The findings presented in this paper provide valuable insights into the imaginary part of timelike entanglement entropy and its physical significance.