Member Seminar

Speaker: Gabriel Wong

Title: Quantum information and extended topological quantum field theory

Abstract: Recently, ideas from quantum information theory have played an important role in condensed matter and quantum gravity research. Most of these applications focus on the entanglement structure of quantum states, and the computation of entanglement measures such as entanglement entropy has been an essential part of the story. In this talk, we will address some subtleties that arise when trying to define entanglement entropy in quantum field theory and quantum gravity. In particular, we will explain why extended topological field theory provides a useful framework to define and compute entanglement entropy in a continuous system. Time permitting, we will explain some recent applications of these ideas in low dimensional quantum gravity and to topological string theory.