Precursors, gauge invariance, and quantum error correction in AdS/CFT

A puzzling aspect of the AdS/CFT correspondence is that a single bulk operator can be mapped to multiple different boundary operators, or precursors. By improving upon a recent model of Mintun, Polchinski, and Rosenhaus, we demonstrate explicitly how this ambiguity arises in a simple model of the field theory. In particular, we show how gauge invariance in the boundary theory manifests as a freedom in the smearing function used in the bulk-boundary mapping, and explicitly show how this freedom can be used to localize the precursor in different spatial regions. We also show how the ambiguity can be understood in terms of quantum error correction, by appealing to the entanglement present in the CFT. The concordance of these two approaches suggests that gauge invariance and entanglement in the boundary field theory are intimately connected to the reconstruction of local operators in the dual spacetime.