Various aspects of warped conformal field theories (WCFTs) are studied including entanglement entropy on excited states, the Rényi entropy after a local quench, and out-of-time-order four-point functions. Assuming a large central charge and dominance of the vacuum block in the conformal block expansion, (i) we calculate the single-interval entanglement entropy on an excited state, matching previous finite temperature results by changing the ensemble; and (ii) we show that WCFTs are maximally chaotic, a result that is compatible with the existence of black holes in the holographic duals. Finally, we relax the aforementioned assumptions and study the time evolution of the Rényi entropy after a local quench. We find that the change in the Rényi entropy is topological, vanishing at early and late times, and nonvanishing in between only for charged states in spectrally-flowed WCFTs.

We explore the question of finiteness of the entanglement entropy in gravitational theories whose emergent space is the target space of a holographic dual. In the well studied duality of two-dimensional non-critical string theory and c = 1 matrix model, this question has been studied earlier using fermionic many-body theory in the space of eigenvalues. The entanglement entropy of a subregion of the eigenvalue space, which is the target space entanglement in the matrix model, is finite, with the scale being provided by the local Fermi momentum. The Fermi momentum is, however, a position dependent string coupling, as is clear in the collective field theory formulation. This suggests that the finiteness is a non-perturbative effect. We provide evidence for this expectation by an explicit calculation in the collective field theory of matrix quantum mechanics with vanishing potential. The leading term in the cumulant expansion of the entanglement entropy is calculated using exact eigenstates and eigenvalues of the collective Hamiltonian, yielding a finite result, in precise agreement with the fermion answer. Treating the theory perturbatively, we show that each term in the perturbation expansion is UV divergent. However the series can be resummed, yielding the exact finite result. Our results indicate that the finiteness of the entanglement entropy for higher dimensional string theories is non-perturbative as well, with the scale provided by Newton’s constant.

We discuss thermofield double QFT at real time, in the large N limit. First, we establish a (dynamical) symmetry, which we argue holds in general for the real-time portion of the Schwinger–Kelydish contour. At large N, this symmetry is seen to generate a one-parameter degeneracy of stationary collective solutions. The construction is explicitly worked out on an example of the $O\left(N\right)$ vector QFT. As a nontrivial application, we describe the construction of the corresponding (large N) thermofield double state in real-time collective formalism.

We discuss the large N expansion in backgrounds of extended states with a focus on the implementation of Goldstone symmetries and the construction of the associated Hilbert space. The formulation is given in the general framework of collective field theory. The case of translational symmetry is described first as a basic example. The large N thermofield represents the main topics, with the emergent dynamics of left–right bulk fields and collective symmetry coordinates. These give the basis for a $1/N$ expansion.

We develop analytical and numerical methods for the matrix thermofield in the large N limit. Through the double collective representation on the Schwinger-Keldysh contour, it provides thermodynamical properties and finite temperature correlation functions, for large N matrix quantum systems.

We discuss the large $N$ expansion in backgrounds of extended states with focus on implementation of Goldstone symmetries and the construction of the associated Hilbert space. The formulation is given in the general framework of collective field theory. Case of translational symmetry is described first, as the basic example. The large $N$ thermofield represents the main topics, with the emergent dynamics of Left-Right bulk fields and collective symmetry coordinates. These give the basis for a $1/N$ expansion.