The Quantum Focusing Conjecture Has Not Been Violated

Abstract

Recent work of Fu, Koeller, and Marolf shows that in $d\geq 5$ dimensions a nonzero Gauss-Bonnet coupling of either sign can lead to a pointwise violation of the Quantum Focusing Conjecture. This violation is due to the classical geometric terms appearing in the QFC. Since those geometric terms are properly understood as expectation values of operators in an effective field theory, we argue that they are only well-defined when smeared over a region at least as large as the cutoff scale of the theory (which may be the Planck scale). We find that this smearing prescription removes the pointwise violation found by Fu et al.. We comment on the relationship to similar issues encountered in the study of Entanglement Wedge Nesting in holography.