Combinatorial properties of holographic entropy inequalities
hep-th, math.CO, quant-ph
Submitted: 2026-01-15
Updated: 2026-10-16
Comments: 35 pages, 1 appendix, 2 figures. Watch a 5-minute video abstract here: https://youtu.be/vUtqPSxG1Io v2: clarified that our results apply to contraction-provable HEIs; new appendix on changing the purifier; other minor corrections, updates, and improvements to presentation
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: A holographic entropy inequality (HEI) is a linear inequality obeyed by Ryu-Takayanagi holographic entanglement entropies, or equivalently by the minimum cut function on weighted graphs.
Terminology
Abstract
A holographic entropy inequality (HEI) is a linear inequality obeyed by Ryu-Takayanagi holographic entanglement entropies, or equivalently by the minimum cut function on weighted graphs. We establish a new combinatorial framework for studying HEIs, and use it to prove several properties they share, including two majorization-related properties as well as a necessary and sufficient condition for an inequality to be an HEI. We thereby resolve all the conjectures presented in [arXiv:2508.21823], proving two of them and disproving the other two. In particular, we show that the null reduction of any superbalanced HEI passes the majorization test defined in [arXiv:2508.21823], thereby providing strong new evidence that all HEIs are obeyed in time-dependent holographic states.
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