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arXiv:0803.4087 · Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields

Renormalized thermal entropy in field theory

Sergio L. Cacciatori, Fabio Costa, Federico Piazza

Published Jan 15, 2009• 16 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Standard entropy calculations in quantum field theory, when applied to a subsystem of definite volume, exhibit area-dependent UV divergences that make a thermodynamic interpretation troublesome. In this paper we define a renormalized entropy which is related with the Newton-Wigner position operator. Accordingly, whenever we trace over a region of space, we trace away degrees of freedom that are localized according to Newton-Wigner localization but not in the usual sense. We consider a free scalar field in $d+1$ spacetime dimensions prepared in a thermal state and we show that our entropy is free of divergences and has a perfectly sound thermodynamic behavior. In the high temperature/big volume limit our results agree with the standard QFT calculations once the divergent contributions are subtracted from the latter. In the limit of low temperature/small volume the entropy goes to zero but with a different dependence on the temperature.

DOI
10.1103/physrevd.79.025006

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We explore entanglement entropy of a cap-like region for a generic quantum field theory residing in the Bunch-Davies vacuum on de Sitter space. Entanglement entropy in our setup is identical with the thermal entropy in the static patch of de Sitter, and we derive a simple relation between the vacuum expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor trace and the RG flow of entanglement entropy. In particular, renormalization of the bare couplings and logarithmic divergence of the entanglement entropy are interrelated in our setup. We confirm our findings by recovering known universal contributions for a free field theory deformed by a mass operator as well as obtain correct universal behaviour at the fixed points. Simple examples of entanglement entropy flows are elaborated in d=2,3,4. Inthreedimensionswefindthatwhiletherenormalizedentanglemententropy is stationary at the fixed points, it is not monotonic. We provide a computational evidence that the universal ‘area law’ for a conformally coupled scalar is different from the known result in the literature, and argue that this difference survives in the limit of flat space. Finally, we carry out the spectral decomposition of entanglement entropy flow and discuss its application to the F-theorem.
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