Entanglement Bounds on Cardy Growth in Higher Dimensions

Abstract

We propose bounds relating thermal entropy to entanglement in unitary conformal field theories: $f\le4π^2a$ in four dimensions and $f\le2.99830949\ldots\,F$ in three dimensions. Here $f$ is the dimensionless coefficient of the cosmological constant term in the thermal effective action, $a$ is the Euler anomaly coefficient, and $F$ is the sphere free energy. These bounds arise naturally as the high-temperature limits of proposed inequalities for spherical Rényi entropy that extend the conformal collider bound in four dimensions and an analogous conjecture in three dimensions. To verify this proposal, we formulate a stronger conjectural inequality common to both dimensions, expressed in terms of the stress-tensor three-point function and saturated by every free theory. We establish this inequality in controlled regimes of weakly coupled gauge theories, large-$N$ vector models, and holographic CFTs. Finite-$N$ numerical results provide additional support. Our proposal suggests that the equality between the universal coefficients governing the Cardy formula and entanglement entropy in two-dimensional CFTs extends to higher dimensions in the form of a universal inequality.