It is often observed in the ground state of spatially-extended quantum systems with local interactions that the entropy of a large region is proportional to its surface area. In some cases, this area law is corrected with a logarithmic factor. This contrasts with the fact that in almost all states of the Hilbert space, the entropy of a region is proportional to its volume. This paper shows that low-energy states have (at most) an area law with the logarithmic correction, provided two conditions hold: (i) the state has sufficient decay of correlations, (ii) the number of eigenstates with vanishing energy-density is not exponential in the volume. These two conditions are satisfied by many relevant systems. The central idea of the argument is that energy fluctuations inside a region can be observed by measuring the exterior and a superficial shell of the region.
An area law is proved for the Renyi entanglement entropy of possibly degenerate ground states in one-dimensional gapped quantum systems. Suppose in a chain of $n$ spins the ground states of a local Hamiltonian with energy gap $ε$ are constant-fold degenerate. Then, the Renyi entanglement entropy $R_α(0<α<1)$ of any ground state across any cut is upper bounded by $\tilde O(α^{-3}/ε)$, and any ground state can be well approximated by a matrix product state of subpolynomial bond dimension $2^{\tilde O(ε^{-1/4}\log^{3/4}n)}$.
In this paper, we present a simple class of non-local field theories whose ground state entanglement entropy follows a volume law as long as the size of subsystem is smaller than a certain scale. We will confirm this volume law both from numerical calculations and from analytical estimation. This behavior fits nicely with holographic results for spacetimes whose curvatures are much smaller than AdS spaces such as those in the flat spacetime.
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 show how the area law for the entanglement entropy may be violated by free fermions on a lattice and look for conditions leading to the emergence of a volume law. We give an explicit construction of the states with maximal entanglement entropy based on the fact that, once a bipartition of the lattice in two complementary sets $A$ and $\bar{A}$ is given, the states with maximal entanglement entropy (volume law) may be factored into Bell-pairs (BP) formed by two states with support on $A$ and $\bar{A}$. We then exhibit, for translational invariant fermionic systems on a lattice, an Hamiltonia…
For the first time, we obtain the entropy variation law in a laser process after finding the Kraus operator of the master equation describing the laser process with the use of the entangled state representation. The behavior of entropy is determined by the competition of the gain and damping in the laser process. The photon number evolution formula is also obtained.
Recent results on the stability of the spectral gap under general perturbations for frustration-free Hamiltonians, have motivated the following question: Does the entanglement entropy of quantum states that are connected to states satisfying an area law along gapped Hamiltonian paths, also satisfy an area law? We answer this question in the affirmative, combining recent advances in quasi-adiabatic evolution and Lieb-Robinson bounds with ideas from the proof of the 1D area law.
To produce a fermionic model exhibiting an entanglement entropy volume law, we propose a particular version of nonlocality in which the energy-momentum dispersion relation is effectively randomized at the shortest length scales while preserving translation invariance. In contrast to the ground state of local fermions, exhibiting an entanglement entropy area law with logarithmic corrections, the entropy of nonlocal fermions is extensive, scaling as the volume of the subregion and crossing over to the anomalous fermion area law at scales larger than the locality scale, α. In the 1-d case, we are…
We revisit the problem of finding the entanglement entropy of a scalar field on a lattice by tracing over its degrees of freedom inside a sphere. It is known that this entropy satisfies the area law -- entropy proportional to the area of the sphere -- when the field is assumed to be in its ground state. We show that the area law continues to hold when the scalar field degrees of freedom are in generic coherent states and a class of squeezed states. However, when excited states are considered, the entropy scales as a lower power of the area. This suggests that for large horizons, the ground sta…
The celebrated area-entropy formula for black holes has provided the most important clue in the search for the elusive theory of quantum gravity. We explore the possibility that the (linear) area-entropy relation acquires some smaller corrections. Using the Boltzmann-Einstein formula, we rule out the possibility for a power-law correction, and provide severe constraints on the coefficient of a possible log-area correction. We argue that a non-zero logarithmic correction to the area-entropy relation, would also imply a modification of the area-mass relation for quantum black holes.
We prove a conjecture by Bravyi on an upper bound on entanglement rates of local Hamiltonians. We then use this bound to prove the stability of the area law for the entanglement entropy of quantum spin systems under adiabatic and quasi-adiabatic evolutions.
The quantum thermodynamic property of the fractional damping system is investigated extensively. A fractional power-law decaying entropy function is revealed which presents another evidence for the validity of the third law of thermodynamics in the quantum dissipative region. Several non-trivial characters are excavated such as that the entropy varies from a non-linear diverging function to a semi-linear decaying function of the fractional exponent as the temperature tends to absolute zero.
The geometric entropy in quantum field theory is not a Lorentz scalar and has no invariant meaning, while the black hole entropy is invariant. Renormalization of entropy and energy for reduced density matrices may lead to the negative free energy even if no boundary conditions are imposed. Presence of particles outside the horizon of a uniformly accelerated observer prevents the description in terms of a single Unruh temperature.
It is known that the entanglement entropy of a scalar field, found by tracing over its degrees of freedom inside a sphere of radius ${\cal R}$, is proportional to the area of the sphere (and not its volume). This suggests that the origin of black hole entropy, also proportional to its horizon area, may lie in the entanglement between the degrees of freedom inside and outside the horizon. We examine this proposal carefully by including excited states, to check probable deviations from the area law.
The second law of thermodynamics is discussed and reformulated from a quantum information theoretic perspective for open quantum systems using relative entropy. Specifically, the relative entropy of a quantum state with respect to equilibrium states is considered and its monotonicity property with respect to an open quantum system evolution is used to obtain second law-like inequalities. We discuss this first for generic quantum systems in contact with a thermal bath and subsequently turn to a formulation suitable for the description of local dynamics in a relativistic quantum field theory. A …
Entanglement entropy is typically proportional to area, but sometimes it acquires an additional logarithmic pre-factor. We offer some intuitive explanations for these facts.
Entanglement entropy obeys area law scaling for typical physical quantum systems. This may naively be argued to follow from locality of interactions. We show that this is not the case by constructing an explicit simple spin chain Hamiltonian with nearest neighbor interactions that presents an entanglement volume scaling law. This non-translational model is contrived to have couplings that force the accumulation of singlet bonds across the half chain. Our result is complementary to the known relation between non-translational invariant, nearest neighbor interacting Hamiltonians and QMA complete…
It is often assumed that the area law of micro-state entropy and the holography are intrinsic properties exclusively of the gravitational systems, such as black holes. We construct a non-gravitational model that exhibits an entropy that scales as area of a sphere of one dimension less. It is represented by a non-relativistic bosonic field living on a d-dimensional sphere of radius R and experiencing an angular-momentum-dependent attractive interaction. We show that the system possesses a quantum critical point with the emergent gapless modes. Their number is equal to the area of a (d-1)-dimens…
We consider the random dimer model in one space dimension with Bernoulli disorder. For sufficiently small disorder, we show that the entanglement entropy exhibits at least a logarithmically enhanced area law if the Fermi energy coincides with a critical energy of the model where the localisation length diverges.
The previously developed algebraic lightfront holography is used in conjunction with the tensor splitting of the chiral theory on the causal horizon. In this way a universal area law for the entanglement entropy of the vacuum relative to the split (tensor factorized) vacuum is obtained. The universality of the area law is a result of the kinematical structure of the properly defined lightfront degrees of freedom. We consider this entropy associated with causal horizon of the wedge algebra in Minkowski spacetime as an analog of the quantum Bekenstein black hole entropy similar to the way in whi…
Using an appropriatly formulated holographic lightfront projection, we derive an area law for the localization-entropy caused by vacuum polarization on the horizon of a wedge region. Its area density has a simple kinematic relation to the volume extensive heat bath entropy of the lightfront algebra. Apart from a change of parametrization the infinite lighlike length contribution to the lightfront volume factor corresponds to the short-distance divergence of the area density of the localization entropy. This correspondence is a consequence of the conformal invariance of the lightfront holograph…
