- Open Access
Relative entropy for in the Rindler wedge
Phys. Rev. D 114, 085001 – Published 1 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/z7jp-p1xx
Abstract
We consider the relative entropy between the vacuum and a coherent state in the Rindler wedge for an interacting theory to first order in . We construct the perturbatively interacting Weyl algebra of the wedge, and employ Tomita-Takesaki modular theory and the Araki-Uhlmann formula to compute the relative entropy. We verify that the relative entropy reduces to the classical (interacting) boost Noether charge, analogously to the free theory, and that the Bekenstein bound holds.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Article Text
References (92)
- V. Vedral, The role of relative entropy in quantum information theory, Rev. Mod. Phys. 74, 197 (2002).
- D. Marolf and A. C. Wall, State-dependent divergences in the entanglement entropy, J. High Energy Phys. 10 (2016) 109.
- M. Tomita, On canonical forms of von Neumann algebras (in Japanese), in Fifth Functional Analysis Symposium, Tôhoku University, Sendai (The Mathematical Institute at Tôhoku University, Sendai, Japan, 1967), pp. 101–102.
- M. Takesaki, Tomita’s Theory of Modular Hilbert Algebras and its Applications, Lecture Notes in Mathematics Vol. 128 (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, Germany, 1970).
- H. Araki, Inequalities in von Neumann algebras, in Les Rencontres Physiciens-Mathématiciens de Strasbourg RCP25 (Institut de Recherche Mathématique Avancée (IRMA), Université Louis Pasteur (ULP), Strasbourg, France, 1975).
- H. Araki, Relative Entropy of States of von Neumann Algebras, Publ. RIMS, Kyoto Univ., 11, 809 (1976).
- A. Uhlmann, Relative entropy and the Wigner-Yanase-Dyson-Lieb concavity in an interpolation theory, Commun. Math. Phys. 54, 21 (1977).
- H. Araki, Some properties of modular conjugation operator of von Neumann algebras and a non-commutative Radon-Nikodym theorem with a chain rule, Pac. J. Math. 50, 309 (1974).
- H. Araki and T. Masuda, Positive cones and -spaces for von Neumann algebras, Publ. RIMS, Kyoto Univ. 18, 339 (1982).
- H. Casini, S. Grillo, and D. Pontello, Relative entropy for coherent states from Araki formula, Phys. Rev. D 99, 125020 (2019).
- R. Longo, Entropy of coherent excitations, Lett. Math. Phys. 109, 2587 (2019).
- N. Lashkari, Constraining quantum fields using modular theory, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2019) 059.
- N. Lashkari, H. Liu, and S. Rajagopal, Modular flow of excited states, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2021) 166.
- M. B. Fröb, Modular Hamiltonian for de Sitter diamonds, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2023) 074.
- D. Cadamuro, M. B. Fröb, and C. Minz, Modular Hamiltonian for fermions of small mass, Ann. Henri Poincaré 26, 4071 (2025).
- D. Cadamuro, M. B. Fröb, and G. Pérez-Nadal, Modular Hamiltonian and modular flow of massless fermions on a cylinder, arXiv:2406.19360.
- J. Caminiti, F. Capeccia, L. Ciambelli, and R. C. Myers, Geometric modular flows in 2d CFT and beyond, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2025) 166.
- E. Tonni and S. Trezzi, Entanglement Hamiltonian for the massless Dirac field on a segment with an inhomogeneous background, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2026) 224.
- J. J. Bisognano and E. H. Wichmann, On the duality condition for a Hermitian scalar field, J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 16, 985 (1975).
- J. J. Bisognano and E. H. Wichmann, On the duality condition for quantum fields, J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 17, 303 (1976).
- H. Casini, E. Teste, and G. Torroba, Relative entropy and the RG flow, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2017) 089.
- V. Rosenhaus and M. Smolkin, Entanglement entropy for relevant and geometric perturbations, J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2015) 015.
- N. Drago, F. Faldino, and N. Pinamonti, Relative entropy and entropy production in pAQFT, Ann. Henri Poincaré 19, 3289 (2018).
- R. Brunetti, K. Fredenhagen, and N. Pinamonti, Thermodynamical aspects of fermions in external electromagnetic fields, Commun. Math. Phys. 406, 292 (2025).
- N. Lashkari, H. Liu, and S. Rajagopal, Perturbation theory for the logarithm of a positive operator, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2023) 097.
- M. Dütsch and K. Fredenhagen, Algebraic quantum field theory, perturbation theory, and the loop expansion, Commun. Math. Phys. 219, 5 (2001).
- M. B. Fröb, A. Much, and K. Papadopoulos, Relative entropy in de Sitter spacetime is a Noether charge, Phys. Rev. D 108, 105004 (2023).
- C. Bär, N. Ginoux, and F. Pfäffle, Wave Equations on Lorentzian Manifolds and Quantization (European Mathematical Society Publishing House, Zürich, Switzerland, 2007).
- N. N. Bogoliubov and D. V. Shirkov, The Theory of Quantized Fields (Interscience Publishers, New York, USA, 1959).
- S. Hollands and R. M. Wald, Conservation of the stress tensor in interacting quantum field theory in curved spacetimes, Rev. Math. Phys. 17, 227 (2005).
- S. Hollands, Noether charges for self-interacting quantum field theories in curved spacetimes with a Killing vector, Ann. Phys. (Berlin) 10, 859 (2001).
- M. Requardt, Symmetry conservation and integrals over local charge densities in quantum field theory, Commun. Math. Phys. 50, 259 (1976).
- F. Ciolli, R. Longo, and G. Ruzzi, The information in a wave, Commun. Math. Phys. 379, 979 (2020).
- J. D. Bekenstein, Universal upper bound on the entropy-to-energy ratio for bounded systems, Phys. Rev. D 23, 287 (1981).
- R. Bousso, A covariant entropy conjecture, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (1999) 004.
- K. Fredenhagen, On the modular structure of local algebras of observables, Commun. Math. Phys. 97, 79 (1985).
- D. Buchholz, C. D’Antoni, and K. Fredenhagen, The universal structure of local algebras, Commun. Math. Phys. 111, 123 (1987).
- L. Bombelli, R. K. Koul, J. Lee, and R. D. Sorkin, Quantum source of entropy for black holes, Phys. Rev. D 34, 373 (1986).
- H. Casini, Relative entropy and the Bekenstein bound, Classical Quantum Gravity 25, 205021 (2008).
- R. Longo and F. Xu, Comment on the Bekenstein bound, J. Geom. Phys. 130, 113 (2018).
- J. Kudler-Flam, S. Leutheusser, A. A. Rahman, G. Satishchandran, and A. J. Speranza, Covariant regulator for entanglement entropy: Proofs of the Bekenstein bound and the quantum null energy condition, Phys. Rev. D 111, 105001 (2025).
- D. Buchholz, C. D’Antoni, and R. Longo, Nuclear maps and modular structures II: Applications to quantum field theory, Commun. Math. Phys. 129, 115 (1990).
- D. Buchholz, C. D’Antoni, and R. Longo, Nuclearity and thermal states in conformal field theory, Commun. Math. Phys. 270, 267 (2007).
- R. Longo, A Bekenstein-type bound in QFT, Commun. Math. Phys. 406, 95 (2025).
- S. Hollands and R. Longo, Bekenstein bound for approximately local charged states, Rev. Math. Phys. 38, 2461008 (2025).
- D. Petz, Quasi-entropies for states of a von Neumann algebra, Publ. RIMS, Kyoto Univ. 21, 787 (1985).
- M. B. Fröb and L. Sangaletti, Petz–Rényi relative entropy in QFT from modular theory, Lett. Math. Phys. 115, 30 (2025).
- F. Hiai, Quantum -divergences in von Neumann algebras. I. Standard -divergences, J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 59, 102202 (2018).
- F. Hiai, Quantum -divergences in von Neumann algebras. II. Maximal -divergences, J. Math. Phys. (N.Y.) 60, 012203 (2019).
- H. Yao and X.-L. Qi, Entanglement entropy and entanglement spectrum of the Kitaev model, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 080501 (2010).
- Y. O. Nakagawa and S. Furukawa, Capacity of entanglement and the distribution of density matrix eigenvalues in gapless systems, Phys. Rev. B 96, 205108 (2017).
- S. Banerjee, J. Erdmenger, and D. Sarkar, Connecting Fisher information to bulk entanglement in holography, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2018) 001.
- J. De Boer, J. Järvelä, and E. Keski-Vakkuri, Aspects of capacity of entanglement, Phys. Rev. D 99, 066012 (2019).
- D. Shrimali, S. Bhowmick, V. Pandey, and A. K. Pati, Capacity of entanglement for a nonlocal Hamiltonian, Phys. Rev. A 106, 042419 (2022).
- R. Arias, G. Di Giulio, E. Keski-Vakkuri, and E. Tonni, Probing RG flows, symmetry resolution and quench dynamics through the capacity of entanglement, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2023) 175.
- K. Andrzejewski, Evolution of capacity of entanglement and modular entropy in harmonic chains and scalar fields, Phys. Rev. D 108, 125013 (2023).
- M. R. Mohammadi Mozaffar, Capacity of entanglement and volume law, J. High Energy Phys. 09 (2024) 068.
- L. Aalsma and S.-E. Bak, Modular fluctuations in cosmology, Phys. Rev. D 112, 026017 (2025).
- M. W. Bub and A. Sivaramakrishnan, Correlation functions of von Neumann entropy, arXiv:2506.10917.
- T. Banks and P. Draper, Generalized entanglement capacity of de Sitter space, Phys. Rev. D 110, 045025 (2024).
- R. Arias, J. de Boer, G. Di Giulio, E. Keski-Vakkuri, and E. Tonni, Sequences of resource monotones from modular Hamiltonian polynomials, Phys. Rev. Res. 5, 043082 (2023).
- R. Longo and F. Xu, Relative entropy in CFT, Adv. Math. 337, 139 (2018).
- P. Fries and I. A. Reyes, Entanglement and relative entropy of a chiral fermion on the torus, Phys. Rev. D 100, 105015 (2019).
- F. Xu, Singular limits of relative entropy in two dimensional massive free fermion theory, Commun. Math. Phys. 401, 2391 (2023).
- S. Galanda, A. Much, and R. Verch, Relative entropy of fermion excitation states on the CAR algebra, Math. Phys. Anal. Geom. 26, 21 (2023).
- F. Finster and A. Much, The relative fermionic entropy in two-dimensional Rindler spacetime, arXiv:2505.14076.
- G. L. Sewell, Quantum fields on manifolds: PCT and gravitationally induced thermal states, Ann. Phys. (N.Y.) 141, 201 (1982).
- B. S. Kay, Purification of KMS states, Helv. Phys. Acta 58, 1030 (1985).
- B. S. Kay, The double wedge algebra for quantum fields on Schwarzschild and Minkowski spacetimes, Commun. Math. Phys. 100, 57 (1985).
- B. S. Kay and R. M. Wald, Theorems on the uniqueness and thermal properties of stationary, nonsingular, quasifree states on spacetimes with a bifurcate Killing horizon, Phys. Rep. 207, 49 (1991).
- S. J. Summers and R. Verch, Modular inclusion, the Hawking temperature, and quantum field theory in curved spacetime, Lett. Math. Phys. 37, 145 (1996).
- F. Kurpicz, N. Pinamonti, and R. Verch, Temperature and entropy–area relation of quantum matter near spherically symmetric outer trapping horizons, Lett. Math. Phys. 111, 110 (2021).
- S. Hollands and A. Ishibashi, News versus information, Classical Quantum Gravity 36, 195001 (2019).
- E. D’Angelo, Relative entropy from coherent states in black hole thermodynamics and cosmology, Master’s thesis, Università di Genova, p. 9, 2023, arXiv:2309.01548.
- E. D’Angelo, Entropy for spherically symmetric, dynamical black holes from the relative entropy between coherent states of a scalar quantum field, Classical Quantum Gravity 38, 175001 (2021).
- E. D’Angelo, M. B. Fröb, S. Galanda, P. Meda, A. Much, and K. Papadopoulos, Entropy-Area law and temperature of de Sitter horizons from modular theory, Prog. Theor. Exp. Phys. 2024, 021A01 (2024).
- D. L. Danielson and G. Satishchandran, Horizons and soft quantum information, arXiv:2512.20754.
- P. Dorau and A. Much, From quantum relative entropy to the semiclassical Einstein equations, Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 091602 (2026).
- F. Ceyhan and T. Faulkner, Recovering the QNEC from the ANEC, Commun. Math. Phys. 377, 999 (2020).
- V. Morinelli, Y. Tanimoto, and B. Wegener, Modular operator for null plane algebras in free fields, Commun. Math. Phys. 395, 331 (2022).
- S. Hollands and R. Longo, A new proof of the QNEC, Commun. Math. Phys. 406, 269 (2025).
- J. R. Fliss and A. Rolph, Curious QNEIs from QNEC: New bounds on null energy in quantum field theory, arXiv:2510.26247.
- I. Ben-Dayan and A. Srivastava, Towards a proof of the improved quantum null energy condition, arXiv:2601.18860.
- H. Casini, I. Salazar Landea, and G. Torroba, Irreversibility, QNEC, and defects, J. High Energy Phys. 07 (2023) 004.
- N. Abate and G. Torroba, Quantum information and the C-theorem in de Sitter, SciPost Phys. 18, 029 (2025).
- V. Jakšić and C.-A. Pillet, On entropy production in quantum statistical mechanics, Commun. Math. Phys. 217, 285 (2001).
- V. Jakšić and C.-A. Pillet, Mathematical theory of non-equilibrium quantum statistical mechanics, J. Stat. Phys. 108, 787 (2002).
- V. Jakšić and C.-A. Pillet, A note on the entropy production formula, in UAB International Conference 2002: Differential Equations and Mathematical Physics, edited by Y. Karpeshina, G. Stolz, R. Weikard, and Y. Zeng, Contemporary Mathematics Vol. 327 (University of Alabama, Birmingham, USA, 2003), pp. 175–180.
- B. Doyon, A. Lucas, K. Schalm, and M. J. Bhaseen, Non-equilibrium steady states in the Klein-Gordon theory, J. Phys. A 48, 095002 (2015).
- N. Drago, F. Faldino, and N. Pinamonti, On the stability of KMS states in perturbative algebraic quantum field theories, Commun. Math. Phys. 357, 267 (2018).
- M. Cirafici, On the nonequilibrium dynamics of gravitational algebras, Classical Quantum Gravity 41, 235006 (2024).
- R. Martín and E. Verdaguer, Stochastic semiclassical fluctuations in Minkowski space-time, Phys. Rev. D 61, 124024 (2000).