Entanglement of Local Operators in large N CFTs

Abstract

We study Renyi and von-Neumann entanglement entropy of excited states created by local operators in large N (or large central charge) CFTs. First we point that a naive large N expansion can break down for the von-Neumann entanglement entropy, while it does not for the Renyi entanglement entropy. This happens even for the excited states in free Yang-Mills theories. Next, we analyze strongly coupled large N CFTs from both field theoretic and holographic viewpoints. We find that the Renyi entanglement entropy of the excited state produced by a local operator, grows logarithmically under its time evolution and its coefficient is proportional to the conformal dimension of the local operator.