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arXiv:1209.4646 · Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

Entanglement entropy in scalar field theory

Mark P. Hertzberg

Published Dec 6, 2012• 57 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Understanding the dependence of entanglement entropy on the renormalized mass in quantum field theories can provide insight into phenomena such as quantum phase transitions, since the mass varies in a singular way near the transition. Here we perturbatively calculate the entanglement entropy in interacting scalar field theory, focusing on the dependence on the field’s mass. We study λϕ 4 and g ϕ 3 theories in their ground state. By tracing over a half space, using the replica trick and position space Green’s functions on the cone, we show that spacetime volume divergences cancel and renormalization can be consistently performed in this conical geometry. We establish finite contributions to the entanglement entropy up to two-loop order, involving a finite area law. The resulting entropy is simple and intuitive: the free theory result in d = 3 (that we included in an earlier publication) Δ S ∼ A m 2 ln ( m 2 ) is altered, to leading order, by replacing the bare mass m by the renormalized mass m r evaluated at the renormalization scale of zero momentum.

DOI
10.1088/1751-8113/46/1/015402

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Understanding the dependence of entanglement entropy on the renormalized mass in quantum field theories can provide insight into phenomena such as quantum phase transitions, since the mass varies in a singular way near the transition. Here we perturbatively calculate the entanglement entropy in interacting scalar field theory, focusing on the dependence on the field’s mass. We study λϕ 4 and g ϕ 3 theories in their ground state. By tracing over a half space, using the replica trick and position space Green’s functions on the cone, we show that spacetime volume divergences cancel and renormalization can be consistently performed in this conical geometry. We establish finite contributions to the entanglement entropy up to two-loop order, involving a finite area law. The resulting entropy is simple and intuitive: the free theory result in d = 3 (that we included in an earlier publication) Δ S ∼ A m 2 ln ( m 2 ) is altered, to leading order, by replacing the bare mass m by the renormalized mass m r evaluated at the renormalization scale of zero momentum.
Abstract The renormalization of entanglement entropy of quantum field theories is investigated in the simplest setting with a λϕ4 scalar field theory. The 3+1 dimensional spacetime is separated into two regions by an infinitely flat 2-dimensional interface. The entanglement entropy of the system across the interface has an elegant geometrical interpretation using the replica trick, which requires putting the field theory on a curved spacetime background. We demonstrate that the theory, and hence the entanglement entropy, is renormalizable at order λ once all the relevant operators up to dimension 4 are included in the action. This exercise has a one-to-one correspondence to entanglement entropy interpretation of the black hole entropy which suggests that our treatment is sensible. Our study suggests that entanglement entropy is renormalizable and is a physical quantity.
We extend the entanglement entropy calculation performed in the seminal paper by Srednicki (Phys Rev Lett 71:666, 1993) for free real massive scalar field theories in 1+11+11+1 1 + 1 , 2+12+12+1 2 + 1 and 3+13+13+1 3 + 1 dimensions. We show that the inverse of the scalar field mass can be used as an expansion parameter for a perturbative calculation of the entanglement entropy. We perform the calculation for the ground state of the system and for a spherical entangling surface at third order in the inverse mass expansion. The calculated entanglement entropy contains a leading area law term, as well as subleading terms that depend on the regularization scheme, as expected. Universal terms are non-perturbative effects in this approach. Interestingly, this perturbative expansion can be used to approximate the coefficient of the area law term, even in the case of a massless scalar field in 2+12+12+1 2 + 1 and 3+13+13+1 3 + 1 dimensions. The presented method provides the spectrum of the reduced density matrix as an intermediate result, which is an important advantage in comparison to the replica trick approach. Our perturbative expansion underlines the relation between the area law and the locality of the underlying field theory.
We find the entanglement entropy of a subregion of the vacuum state in scalar quantum electrodynamics, working perturbatively to the two-loop level. Doing so leads us to derive the Maxwell-Proca propagator in conical Euclidean space. The area law of entanglement entropy is recovered in both the massive and massless limits of the theory, as is expected. These results yield the renormalization group flow of entanglement entropy, and we find that loop contributions suppress entanglement entropy. We highlight these results in the light of the renormalization group flow of couplings and correlators, which are increased in scalar quantum electrodynamics, so that the potential tension between the increase in correlations between two points of spacetime and the decrease in entanglement entropy between two regions of spacetime with energy is discussed. We indeed show that the vacuum of a subregion of spacetime purifies with energy in scalar quantum electrodynamics, which is related to the concept of screening. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
The renormalization of entanglement entropy of quantum field theories is investigated in the simplest setting with a λϕ4λϕ^4λϕ4 scalar field theory. The 3+1 dimensional spacetime is separated into two regions by an infinitely flat 2-dimensional interface. The entanglement entropy of the system across the interface has an elegant geometrical interpretation using the replica trick, which requires putting the field theory on a curved spacetime background. We demonstrate that the theory, and hence the entanglement entropy, is renormalizable at order λλλ once all the relevant operators up to dimension-4 are included in the action. This exercise has a one-to-one correspondence to entanglement entropy interpretation of the black hole entropy which suggests that our treatment is sensible. Our study suggests that entanglement entropy is renormalizable and is a physical quantity.
Entanglement is a fundamental feature of quantum mechanics and plays an important role in characterizing many-body systems and quantum phase transitions. A quantitative measure of quantum correlations between subsystems is entanglement entropy. In this thesis, we study the entanglement entropy of an interacting quantum field theory, the O(N) model. In local quantum field theories, the leading-order contribution in the scaling of entanglement entropy obeys an area law. This dominant term is governed by short-distance physics near the entangling surface and depends on the ultraviolet regularization, making it non-universal. Beyond this lead- ing scaling behavior, entanglement entropy can contain subleading universal contributions, which encode intrinsic information about the underlying quantum field theory. In this thesis, we calculate one such universal term: the correlation length coefficient r, which appears as a correction to the entanglement entropy evaluated slightly away from the quantum critical point. The analysis is carried out in D = 2 + 1 spacetime dimensions for an infinite cylindrical geometry. We study the model in the vicinity of criticality using the large-N expansion, which enables controlled analytical calculations. Our main result is that the coefficient r scales linearly with the number of field components N . This behavior is consistent with the interpretation of r as a universal quantity associated with the degrees of freedom of the theory. The calculation is based on the replica method and renormalization group arguments, which are presented in detail. Finally, we discuss the physical meaning of the result and possible methods for verifying it, and we review related results for the O(N) model in different geometries.
Abstract We investigate how entanglement entropy behaves in a non-conformal scalar field system with a quantum phase transition, by the replica method. We study the σ-model in 3+1 dimensions which is O(N) symmetric as the mass squared parameter μ2 is positive, and undergoes spontaneous symmetry breaking while μ2 becomes negative. The area law leading divergence of the entanglement entropy is preserved in both of the symmetric and the broken phases. The spontaneous symmetry breaking changes the subleading divergence from log to log squared, due to the cubic interaction on the cone. At the leading order of the coupling constant expansion, the entanglement entropy reaches a cusped maximum at the quantum phase transition point μ2 = 0, and decreases while μ2 is tuned away from 0 into either phase.