Timelike entanglement entropy: A top-down approach

We investigate the concept of timelike entanglement entropy (tEE) within the framework of holography. We introduce a robust top-down prescription for computing tEE using the holographic duals to higher-dimensional quantum field theories—both conformal and confining—eliminating the ambiguities typically associated with analytic continuation from Euclidean to Lorentzian signatures. We present accurate analytic approximations for tEE and timelike separations in slab geometries. We establish a clear stability criterion for bulk embeddings and demonstrate that tEE serves as a powerful tool for computing conformal field theory central charges, extending and strengthening previous results. Finally, we apply our framework to holographic confining backgrounds, revealing distinctive behaviors like phase transitions.