We review the conformal field theory approach to entanglement entropy. We show how to apply these methods to the calculation of the entanglement entropy of a single interval, and the generalization to different situations such as finite size, systems with boundaries, and the case of several disjoint intervals. We discuss the behaviour away from the critical point and the spectrum of the reduced density matrix. Quantum quenches, as paradigms of non-equilibrium situations, are also considered.
We show that in 1+1 dimensional conformal field theories, exciting a state with a local operator increases the Renyi entanglement entropies by a constant which is the same for every member of the conformal family. Hence, it is an intrinsic parameter that characterises local operators from the perspective of quantum entanglement. In rational conformal field theories this constant corresponds to the logarithm of the quantum dimension of the primary operator. We provide several detailed examples for the second Renyi entropies and a general derivation.
We explore a conformal field theoretic interpretation of the holographic entanglement of purification, which is defined as the minimal area of entanglement wedge cross section. We argue that in AdS3/CFT2, the holographic entanglement of purification agrees with the entanglement entropy for a purified state, obtained from a special Weyl transformation, called path-integral optimizations. By definition, this special purified state has the minimal path-integral complexity. We confirm this claim in several examples.
Quantifying entanglement properties of mixed states in quantum field theory via entanglement of purification and reflected entropy is a new and challenging subject. In this work, we study both quantities for two spherical subregions far away from each other in the vacuum of a conformal field theory in any number of dimensions. Using lattice techniques, we find an elementary proof that the decay of both, the entanglement of purification and reflected entropy, is enhanced with respect to the mutual information behaviour by a logarithm of the distance between the subregions. In the case of the Is…
We study the time evolution of the entanglement negativity after a local quantum quench in (1+1)-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs), which we introduce by suddenly joining two initially decoupled CFTs at their endpoints. We calculate the negativity evolution for both adjacent intervals and disjoint intervals explicitly. For two adjacent intervals, the entanglement negativity grows logarithmically in time right after the quench. After developing a plateau-like feature, the entanglement negativity drops to the ground-state value. For the case of two spatially separated intervals, a ligh…
We provide numerical evidence that the low-lying part of the entanglement spectrum of a real-space block (i.e. a single interval) of a one-dimensional quantum many body system at a conformal critical point corresponds to the energy spectrum of a boundary conformal field theory (CFT). This correspondence allows to uncover a subset of the operator content of a conformal field theory by inspection of the entanglement spectrum of a single wave function, thus providing important information on a CFT beyond its central charge. As a practical application we show that for many systems described by a c…
In this work, we study the time evolution of the entanglement hamiltonian during the process of thermalization in a (1+1)-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) after a quantum quench from a special class of initial states. In particular, we focus on a subsystem which is a finite interval at the end of a semi-infinite line. Based on conformal mappings, the exact forms of both entanglement hamiltonian and entanglement spectrum of the subsystem can be obtained. Aside from various interesting features, it is found that in the infinite time limit the entanglement hamiltonian and entanglement spe…
We derive exact formulas for bipartite von Neumann entanglement entropy after partial projective local measurement in $1+1$ dimensional conformal field theories with periodic and open boundary conditions. After defining the set up we will check numerically the validity of our results in the case of Klein-Gordon field theory (coupled harmonic oscillators) and spin-$1/2$ XX chain in a magnetic field. The agreement between analytical results and the numerical calculations is very good. We also find a lower bound for localizable entanglement in coupled harmonic oscillators.
We discuss the Renyi entanglement entropies of descendant states in critical one-dimensional systems with boundaries, that map to boundary conformal field theories in the scaling limit. We unify the previous conformal-field-theory approaches to describe primary and descendant states in systems with both open and closed boundaries. We provide universal expressions for the first two descendants in the identity family. We apply our technique to critical systems belonging to different universality classes with non-trivial boundary conditions that preserve conformal invariance, and find excellent a…
We study the scaling behavior of the entanglement entropy of two dimensional conformal quantum critical systems, i.e. systems with scale invariant wave functions. They include two-dimensional generalized quantum dimer models on bipartite lattices and quantum loop models, as well as the quantum Lifshitz model and related gauge theories. We show that, under quite general conditions, the entanglement entropy of a large and simply connected sub-system of an infinite system with a smooth boundary has a universal finite contribution, as well as scale-invariant terms for special geometries. The unive…
An exponential deformation of 1D critical Hamiltonians gives rise to ground states whose entanglement entropy satisfies a volume-law. This effect is exemplified in the XX and Heisenberg models. In the XX case we characterize the crossover between the critical and the maximally entangled ground state in terms of the entanglement entropy and the entanglement spectrum.
We study the entanglement of two disjoint intervals in the conformal field theory of the Luttinger liquid (free compactified boson). Trρ_A^n for any integer n is calculated as the four-point function of a particular type of twist fields and the final result is expressed in a compact form in terms of the Riemann-Siegel theta functions. In the decompactification limit we provide the analytic continuation valid for all model parameters and from this we extract the entanglement entropy. These predictions are checked against existing numerical data.
We study the Von Neumann and Rényi entanglement entropy of long-range harmonic oscillators (LRHO) by both theoretical and numerical means. We show that the entanglement entropy in massless harmonic oscillators increases logarithmically with the sub-system size as $S=\frac{c_{eff}}{3}\log l$. Although the entanglement entropy of LRHO's shares some similarities with the entanglement entropy at conformal critical points we show that the Rényi entanglement entropy presents some deviations from the expected conformal behavior. In the massive case we demonstrate that the behavior of the entanglement…
We present a new method of deriving the geometry of entanglement wedges in holography directly from conformal field theories (CFTs). We analyze an information metric called the Bures metric of reduced density matrices for locally excited states. This measures distinguishability of states with different points excited. For a subsystem given by an interval, we precisely reproduce the expected entanglement wedge for two dimensional holographic CFTs from the Bures metric, which turns out to be proportional to the AdS metric on a time slice. On the other hand, for free scalar CFTs, we do not find a…
We use the conformal invariance and the holographic correspondence to fully specify the dependence of entanglement entropy on the extrinsic geometry of the 2d surface $Σ$ that separates two subsystems of quantum strongly coupled ${\mathcal{N}}=4$ SU(N) superconformal gauge theory. We extend this result and calculate entanglement entropy of a generic 4d conformal field theory. As a byproduct, we obtain a closed-form expression for the entanglement entropy in flat space-time when $Σ$ is sphere $S_2$ and when $Σ$ is two-dimensional cylinder. The contribution of the type A conformal anomaly to ent…
We study holographic entanglement entropy in dS/CFT and introduce time-like entanglement entropy in CFTs. Both of them take complex values in general and are related with each other via an analytical continuation. We argue that they are correctly understood as pseudo entropy. We find that the imaginary part of pseudo entropy implies an emergence of time in dS/CFT.
We consider the Aharonov-Bohm effect on entanglement entropy for one interval in (1+1) dimensional conformal field theory on a one dimensional ring. The magnetic field is confined inside the ring, i.e. there is a Wilson loop on the ring. The Aharonov-Bohm phase factor which is proportional to the Wilson loop is represented as insertion of twist operators. We compute exactly the Renyi entropy from a four point function of twist operators in a free charged scalar field.
Entanglement or modular Hamiltonians play a crucial role in the investigation of correlations in quantum field theories. In particular, in 1+1 space-time dimensions, the spectra of entanglement Hamiltonians of conformal field theories (CFTs) for certain geometries are related to the spectra of the physical Hamiltonians of corresponding boundary CFTs. As a result, conformal invariance allows exact computation of the spectra of the entanglement Hamiltonians for these models. In this work, we perform this computation of the spectrum of the entanglement Hamiltonian for the free compactified boson …
In this paper, we review how to obtain the central charge of a critical entanglement Hamiltonian through the nested entanglement entropy which was first introduced in [J. Lou et al. PRB 84, 245128 (2011)]. The critical phenomena of the entanglement Hamiltonian can be identified by the central charge obtained by the nested entanglement entropy. We review our previous studies[J. Lou et al. PRB 84, 245128 (2011), S. Tanaka et al. PRA 87, 214401 (2013)] in which we investigated certain entanglement nature of two-dimensional valence-bond-solid (VBS) state and quantum hard-square models on square an…
I discuss the von Neumann entanglement entropy in two-dimensional quantum Lifshitz criical point, namely in Rokhsar-Kivelson type critical wavefunctions. I follow the approach proposed by B. Hsu et al. [Phys. Rev. B 79, 115421 (2009)], but point out a subtle problem concerning compactification of replica boson fields: although one can define a set of new boson fields by linear combinations of the original fields, the new fields are not compactified independently. In order to systematically study boundary conformal field theory of multicomponent free bosons, I employ a geometric formulation bas…
We investigate the entanglement entropy between two subsets of particles in the ground state of the Calogero-Sutherland model. By using the duality relations of the Jack symmetric polynomials, we obtain exact expressions for both the reduced density matrix and the entanglement entropy in the limit of an infinite number of particles traced out. From these results, we obtain an upper bound value of the entanglement entropy. This upper bound has a clear interpretation in terms of fractional exclusion statistics.
We calculate the entanglement entropy of strongly correlated low-dimensional fermions in metallic, superfluid and antiferromagnetic insulating phases. The entanglement entropy reflects the degrees of freedom available in each phase for storing and processing information, but is found not to be a state function in the thermodynamic sense. The role of critical points, smooth crossovers and Hilbert space restrictions in shaping the dependence of the entanglement entropy on the system parameters is illustrated for metallic, insulating and superfluid systems. The dependence of the spin susceptibili…
The time evolution of entanglement tracks how information propagates in interacting quantum systems. We study entanglement entropy in CFT$_2$ with a time-dependent Hamiltonian. We perturb by operators with time-dependent source functions and use the replica trick to calculate higher order corrections to entanglement entropy. At first order, we compute the correction due to a metric perturbation in AdS$_3$/CFT$_2$ and find agreement on both sides of the duality. Past first order, we find evidence of a universal structure of entanglement propagation to all orders. The central feature is that int…
We investigate how entanglement spreads in time-dependent states of a 1+1 dimensional conformal field theory (CFT). The results depend qualitatively on the value of the central charge. In rational CFTs, which have central charge below a critical value, entanglement entropy behaves as if correlations were carried by free quasiparticles. This leads to long-term memory effects, such as spikes in the mutual information of widely separated regions at late times. When the central charge is above the critical value, the quasiparticle picture fails. Assuming no extended symmetry algebra, any theory wi…
We consider the entanglement entropy for the 2D Ising model at the conformal fixed point in the presence of interfaces. More precisely, we investigate the situation where the two subsystems are separated by a defect line that preserves conformal invariance. Using the replica trick, we compute the entanglement entropy between the two subsystems. We observe that the entropy, just like in the case without defects, shows a logarithmic scaling behavior with respect to the size of the system. Here, the prefactor of the logarithm depends on the strength of the defect encoded in the transmission coeff…
We enumerate the cases in 2d conformal field theory where the logarithm of the reduced density matrix (the entanglement or modular hamiltonian) may be written as an integral over the energy-momentum tensor times a local weight. These include known examples and new ones corresponding to the time-dependent scenarios of a global and local quench. In these latter cases the entanglement hamiltonian depends on the momentum density as well as the energy density. In all cases the entanglement spectrum is that of the appropriate boundary CFT. We emphasize the role of boundary conditions at the entangli…
We study the entanglement entropies in one-dimensional open critical systems, whose effective description is given by a conformal field theory with boundaries. We show that for pure-state systems formed by the ground state or by the excited states associated to primary fields, the entanglement entropies have a finite-size behavior that depends on the correlation of the underlying field theory. The analytical results are checked numerically, finding excellent agreement for the quantum chains ruled by the theories with central charge $c=1/2$ and $c=1$.
We reconsider the computation of the entanglement entropy of two disjoint intervals in a (1+1) dimensional conformal field theory by conformal block expansion of the 4-point correlation function of twist fields. We show that accurate results may be obtained by taking into account several terms in the operator product expansion (OPE) of twist fields and by iterating the Zamolodchikov recursion formula for each conformal block. We perform a detailed analysis for the Ising conformal field theory and for the free compactified boson. Each term in the conformal block expansion can be easily analytic…
We investigate the effect of a global degeneracy in the distribution of entanglement spectrum in conformal field theories in one spatial dimension. We relate the recently found universal expression for the entanglement hamiltonian to the distribution of the entanglement spectrum. The main tool to establish this connection is the Cardy formula. It turns out that the Affleck-Ludwig non-integer degeneracy, appearing because of the boundary conditions induced at the entangling surface, can be directly read from the entanglement spectrum distribution. We also clarify the effect of the non-integer d…
We calculate the thermal correction to the entanglement spectrum for separating a single interval of two dimensional conformal field theories. Our derivation is a direct extension of the thermal correction to the Rényi entropy. Within a low-temperature expansion by including only the first excited state in the thermal density matrix, we approach analytical results of the thermal correction to the entanglement spectrum at both of the small and large interval limit. We find the temperature correction reduces the large eigenvalues in the entanglement spectrum while increases the small eigenvalues…
We continue the study of entanglement entropy for a QFT through a perturbative expansion of the path integral definition of the reduced density matrix. The universal entanglement entropy for a CFT perturbed by a relevant operator is calculated to second order in the coupling. We also explore the geometric dependence of entanglement entropy for a deformed planar entangling surface, finding surprises at second order.
We revisit conformal quantum mechanics (CQM) from the perspective of sine-square deformation (SSD) and the entanglement Hamiltonian. The operators that correspond to SSD and the entanglement Hamiltonian are identified. Thus, the nature of SSD and entanglement can be discussed in a much simpler CQM setting than higher-dimensional field theories.
The ground state entanglement entropy is studied in a many-body bipartite quantum system with either a single or multiple conserved quantities. It is shown that the entanglement entropy exhibits a universal power-law behaviour at large $R$ -- the occupancy ratio between the two subsystems. Single and multiple conserved quantities lead to different power-law exponents, suggesting the entanglement entropy can serve to detect hidden conserved quantities. Moreover, occupancy measurements allow to infer the bipartite entanglement entropy. All the above results are generalized for the Rényi entropy.
For a generic conformal field theory (CFT) in four dimensions, the scale anomaly dictates that the universal part of entanglement entropy across a sphere ($\mathcal{C}_{\text{univ}}(S^{2})$) is positive. Based on this fact, we explore the consequences of assuming positive sign for $\mathcal{C}_{\text{univ}}(S^{2})$ in a four dimensional scale invariant theory (SFT). In absence of a dimension two scalar operator $\mathcal{O}_{2}$ in the spectrum of a SFT, we show that this assumption suggests that SFT is a CFT. In presence of $\mathcal{O}_{2}$, we show that this assumption can fix the coefficie…
We analyze the Ricci flow of a noncompact metric that describes a two-dimensional black hole. We consider entanglement entropy of a 2d black hole which is due to the quantum correlations between two subsystems: one is inside and the other is outside the black hole horizon. It is demonstrated that the entanglement entropy is monotonic along the Ricci flow.
Two significant consequences of quantum fluctuations are entanglement and criticality. Entangled states may not be critical but a critical state shows signatures of universality in entanglement. A surprising result found here is that the entanglement entropy may become arbitrarily large and negative near the dissociation of a bound pair of quantum particles. Although apparently counter-intuitive, it is shown to be consistent and essential for the phase transition, by mapping to a classical problem of DNA melting. We associate the entanglement entropy to a subextensive part of the entropy of DN…
We study the time evolution of entanglement entropy and entanglement spectrum in a finite-size system which crosses a quantum phase transition at different speeds. We focus on the Ising model with a time-dependent magnetic field, which is linearly tuned on a time scale $τ$ . The time evolution of the entanglement entropy displays different regimes depending on the value of $τ$, showing also oscillations which depend on the instantaneous energy spectrum. The entanglement spectrum is characterized by a rich dynamics where multiple crossings take place with a gap-dependent frequency. Moreover, we…
The entanglement entropy for the ground state of a XY spin chain is related to the corner transfer matrices of the triangular Ising model and expressed in closed form.
We consider a section of a half-filled chain of free electrons and its entanglement with the rest of the system in the presence of one or two interface defects. We find a logarithmic behaviour of the entanglement entropy with constants depending continuously on the defect strength.
