Anomalies, entropy and boundaries

Abstract: A relation between the conformal anomaly and the logarithmic term in the entanglement entropy is known to exist for CFT's in even dimensions. In odd dimensions the local anomaly and the logarithmic term in the entropy are absent. As was observed recently, there exists a non-trivial integrated anomaly if an odd-dimensional spacetime has boundaries. We show that, similarly, there exists a logarithmic term in the entanglement entropy when the entangling surface crosses the boundary of spacetime. The relation of the entanglement entropy to the integrated conformal anomaly is elaborated for three-dimensional theories. Distributional properties of intrinsic and extrinsic geometries of the boundary in the presence of conical singularities in the bulk are established. This allows one to find contributions to the entropy that depend on the relative angle between the boundary and the entangling surface.