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arXiv:1002.4635 · Physical Review B

Conformal field theory approach to Fermi liquids and other highly entangled states

Brian G. Swingle

Published Jul 12, 2012• 47 citations
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Abstract

The Fermi surface may be usefully viewed as a collection of ($1+1$)-dimensional chiral conformal field theories. This approach permits straightforward calculation of many anomalous ground-state properties of the Fermi gas, including entanglement entropy and number fluctuations. The ($1+1$)-dimensional picture also generalizes to finite temperature and the presence of interactions. We argue that the low-energy entanglement structure of Fermi liquid theory is universal, depending only on the geometry of the interacting Fermi surface. We also describe three additional systems in $3+1$ dimensions where a similar mechanism leads to a violation of the boundary law for entanglement entropy.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.86.035116

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The Fermi surface may be usefully viewed as a collection of (1+11+11+1)-dimensional chiral conformal field theories. This approach permits straightforward calculation of many anomalous ground-state properties of the Fermi gas, including entanglement entropy and number fluctuations. The (1+11+11+1)-dimensional picture also generalizes to finite temperature and the presence of interactions. We argue that the low-energy entanglement structure of Fermi liquid theory is universal, depending only on the geometry of the interacting Fermi surface. We also describe three additional systems in 3+13+13+1 dimensions where a similar mechanism leads to a violation of the boundary law for entanglement entropy.
Free fermions with a finite Fermi surface are known to exhibit an anomalously large entanglement entropy. The leading contribution to the entanglement entropy of a region of linear size L in d spatial dimensions is S∼L(d-1)logL, a result that should be contrasted with the usual boundary law S∼L(d-1). This term depends only on the geometry of the Fermi surface and on the boundary of the region in question. I give an intuitive account of this anomalous scaling based on a low energy description of the Fermi surface as a collection of one-dimensional gapless modes. Using this picture, I predict a violation of the boundary law in a number of other strongly correlated systems.
We compute the leading contribution to the ground-state R\'enyi entropy ${S}_{\ensuremath{\alpha}}$ for a region of linear size LLL in a Fermi liquid in ddd dimensions. The result contains a universal boundary law violating term simply related to the more familiar entanglement entropy. We also obtain a universal crossover function that smoothly interpolates between the zero-temperature result and the ordinary thermal R\'enyi entropy of a Fermi liquid. Formulas for the entanglement entropy of more complicated regions, including nonconvex and disconnected regions, are obtained from the conformal field theory formulation of Fermi surface dynamics. These results permit an evaluation of the quantum mutual information between different regions in a Fermi liquid. We also study the number fluctuations in a Fermi liquid. Taken together, these results give a reasonably complete characterization of the low-energy quantum information content of Fermi liquids.
In this paper, we calculate the entanglement R\'enyi entropy of two coupled gapless systems in general spatial dimension ddd. The gapless systems can be either conformal field theories or Fermi liquids. We assume the two systems are coupled uniformly in an hhh-dimensional submanifold of the space, with $0\ensuremath{\le}h\ensuremath{\le}d$. We will focus on the scaling of the R\'enyi entropy with the size of the system, and its scaling with the intersystem coupling constant ggg. Three approaches will be used for our calculation: (1) exact calculation with ground-state wave functional, (2) perturbative calculation with functional path integral, and (3) scaling argument.
Abstract An outstanding challenge involves understanding the many-particle entanglement of liquid states of quantum matter that arise in systems of interacting electrons. The Fermi liquid (FL) shows a violation of the area-law in real-space entanglement entropy of a subsystem, believed to be a signature of the ground state of a gapless quantum critical system of interacting fermions. Here, we apply a T = 0 renormalization group approach to the FL, unveiling the long-wavelength quantum fluctuations from which long-range entanglement arises. A similar analysis of non-Fermi liquids such as the 2D marginal Fermi liquid (MFL) and the 1D Tomonaga–Luttinger liquid reveals a universal logarithmic violation of the area-law in gapless electronic liquids, with a proportionality constant that depends on the nature of the underlying Fermi surface. We extend this analysis to classify the gapped quantum liquids emergent from the destabilisation of the Fermi surface by renormalisation group relevant quantum fluctuations arising from backscattering processes.
Entanglement entropy in even-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs) contains well-known universal terms arising from the conformal anomaly. R\'enyi entropies are natural generalizations of the entanglement entropy that are much less understood. Above two spacetime dimensions, the universal terms in the R\'enyi entropies are unknown for general entangling geometries. We conjecture a new structure in the dependence of the four-dimensional R\'enyi entropies on the intrinsic and extrinsic geometry of the entangling surface. We provide evidence for this conjecture by direct numerical computations in the free scalar and fermion field theories. The computation involves relating the four-dimensional free massless R\'enyi entropies across cylindrical entangling surfaces to corresponding three-dimensional massive R\'enyi entropies across circular entangling surfaces. Our numerical technique also allows us to directly probe other interesting aspects of three-dimensional R\'enyi entropy, including the massless renormalized R\'enyi entropy and calculable contributions to the perimeter law.
Motivated by recent development of the concept of the disorder operator and its relation with entanglement entropy in bosonic systems, here we show the disorder operator successfully probes many aspects of quantum entanglement in fermionic many-body systems. From both analytical and numerical computations in free and interacting fermion systems in 1D and 2D, we find the disorder operator and the entanglement entropy exhibit similar universal scaling behavior, as a function of the boundary length of the subsystem, but with subtle yet important differences. In 1D they both follow the \log{L} log L scaling behavior with the coefficient determined by the Luttinger parameter for disorder operator, and the conformal central charge for entanglement entropy. In 2D they both show the universal L\log L L log L scaling behavior in free and interacting Fermi liquid states, with the coefficients depending on the geometry of the Fermi surfaces. However at a 2D quantum critical point with non-Fermi-liquid state, extra symmetry information is needed in the design of the disorder operator, so as to reveal the critical fluctuations as does the entanglement entropy. Our results demonstrate the fermion disorder operator can be used to probe quantum many-body entanglement related to global symmetry, and provide new tools to explore the still largely unknown territory of highly entangled fermion quantum matter in 2 or higher dimensions.