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  • Open Access

Timelike entanglement entropy: A top-down approach

Carlos Nunez1,* and Dibakar Roychowdhury2,†

  • *Contact author: c.nunez@swansea.ac.uk
  • †Contact author: dibakar.roychowdhury@ph.iitr.ac.in
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Phys. Rev. D 112, 026030 – Published 28 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/vjyt-xc15

Abstract

We investigate the concept of timelike entanglement entropy (tEE) within the framework of holography. We introduce a robust top-down prescription for computing tEE using the holographic duals to higher-dimensional quantum field theories—both conformal and confining—eliminating the ambiguities typically associated with analytic continuation from Euclidean to Lorentzian signatures. We present accurate analytic approximations for tEE and timelike separations in slab geometries. We establish a clear stability criterion for bulk embeddings and demonstrate that tEE serves as a powerful tool for computing conformal field theory central charges, extending and strengthening previous results. Finally, we apply our framework to holographic confining backgrounds, revealing distinctive behaviors like phase transitions.

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Phys. Rev. D 112, 026030– Published 28 July, 2025
  • Received 31 May 2025
  • Accepted 10 July 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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