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arXiv:1302.1110 · Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment

Entanglement negativity and conformal field theory: a Monte Carlo study

Vincenzo Alba

Published May 17, 2013• 86 citations
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Abstract

We investigate the behavior of the moments of the partially transposed reduced density matrix ρ^{T_2}_A in critical quantum spin chains. Given subsystem A as union of two blocks, this is the (matrix) transposed of ρ_A with respect to the degrees of freedom of one of the two. This is also the main ingredient for constructing the logarithmic negativity. We provide a new numerical scheme for calculating efficiently all the moments of ρ_A^{T_2} using classical Monte Carlo simulations. In particular we study several combinations of the moments which are scale invariant at a critical point. Their behavior is fully characterized in both the critical Ising and the anisotropic Heisenberg XXZ chains. For two adjacent blocks we find, in both models, full agreement with recent CFT calculations. For disjoint ones, in the Ising chain finite size corrections are non negligible. We demonstrate that their exponent is the same governing the unusual scaling corrections of the mutual information between the two blocks. Monte Carlo data fully match the theoretical CFT prediction only in the asymptotic limit of infinite intervals. Oppositely, in the Heisenberg chain scaling corrections are smaller and, already at finite (moderately large) block sizes, Monte Carlo data are in excellent agreement with the asymptotic CFT result.

DOI
10.1088/1742-5468/2013/05/p05013

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We investigate the behavior of the moments of the partially transposed reduced density matrix ρ^{T_2}_A in critical quantum spin chains. Given subsystem A as union of two blocks, this is the (matrix) transposed of ρ_A with respect to the degrees of freedom of one of the two. This is also the main ingredient for constructing the logarithmic negativity. We provide a new numerical scheme for calculating efficiently all the moments of ρ_A^{T_2} using classical Monte Carlo simulations. In particular we study several combinations of the moments which are scale invariant at a critical point. Their behavior is fully characterized in both the critical Ising and the anisotropic Heisenberg XXZ chains. For two adjacent blocks we find, in both models, full agreement with recent CFT calculations. For disjoint ones, in the Ising chain finite size corrections are non negligible. We demonstrate that their exponent is the same governing the unusual scaling corrections of the mutual information between the two blocks. Monte Carlo data fully match the theoretical CFT prediction only in the asymptotic limit of infinite intervals. Oppositely, in the Heisenberg chain scaling corrections are smaller and, already at finite (moderately large) block sizes, Monte Carlo data are in excellent agreement with the asymptotic CFT result.
Motivated by recent developments in conformal field theory (CFT), we devise a quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method to calculate the moments of the partially transposed reduced density matrix at finite temperature. These are used to construct scale invariant combinations that are related to the negativity, a true measure of entanglement for two intervals embedded in a chain. These quantities can serve as witnesses of criticality. In particular, we study several scale invariant combinations of the moments for the one-dimensional (1D) hard-core boson model. For two adjacent intervals unusual finite-size corrections are present, showing parity effects that oscillate with a filling dependent period. These are more pronounced in the presence of boundaries. For large chains we find perfect agreement with CFT. Oppositely, for disjoint intervals corrections are more severe and CFT is recovered only asymptotically. Furthermore, we provide evidence that their exponent is the same as that governing the corrections of the mutual information. Additionally we study the 1D Bose-Hubbard model in the superfluid phase. Remarkably, the finite-size effects are smaller and QMC data are already in impressive agreement with CFT at moderately large sizes.
We study the scaling of the traces of the integer powers of the partially transposed reduced density matrix and of the entanglement negativity for two spin blocks as function of their length and separation in the critical Ising chain. For two adjacent blocks, we show that tensor network calculations agree with universal conformal field theory (CFT) predictions. In the case of two disjoint blocks the CFT predictions are recovered only after taking into account the finite size corrections induced by the finite length of the blocks.
We study the scaling of the Renyi entanglement entropy of two disjoint blocks of critical lattice models described by conformal field theories with central charge c=1. We provide the analytic conformal field theory result for the second order Renyi entropy for a free boson compactified on an orbifold describing the scaling limit of the Ashkin-Teller (AT) model on the self-dual line. We have checked this prediction in cluster Monte Carlo simulations of the classical two dimensional AT model. We have also performed extensive numerical simulations of the anisotropic Heisenberg quantum spin-chain with tree-tensor network techniques that allowed to obtain the reduced density matrices of disjoint blocks of the spin-chain and to check the correctness of the predictions for Renyi and entanglement entropies from conformal field theory. In order to match these predictions, we have extrapolated the numerical results by properly taking into account the corrections induced by the finite length of the blocks to the leading scaling behavior.
We develop a systematic method to extract the negativity in the ground state of a 1+11+11+1 dimensional relativistic quantum field theory, using a path integral formalism to construct the partial transpose ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{A}^{{T}_{2}}$ of the reduced density matrix of a subsystem $A={A}_{1}\ensuremath{\cup}{A}_{2}$, and introducing a replica approach to obtain its trace norm which gives the logarithmic negativity $\mathcal{E}=\mathrm{ln}\ensuremath{\Vert}{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{A}^{{T}_{2}}\ensuremath{\Vert}$. This is shown to reproduce standard results for a pure state. We then apply this method to conformal field theories, deriving the result $\mathcal{E}\ensuremath{\sim}(c/4)\mathrm{ln}[{\ensuremath{\ell}}_{1}{\ensuremath{\ell}}_{2}/({\ensuremath{\ell}}_{1}+{\ensuremath{\ell}}_{2})]$ for the case of two adjacent intervals of lengths ${\ensuremath{\ell}}_{1}$, ${\ensuremath{\ell}}_{2}$ in an infinite system, where ccc is the central charge. For two disjoint intervals it depends only on the harmonic ratio of the four end points and so is manifestly scale invariant. We check our findings against exact numerical results in the harmonic chain.
Abstract We reconsider the moments of the reduced density matrix of two disjoint intervals and of its partial transpose with respect to one interval for critical free fermionic lattice models. It is known that these matrices are sums of either two or four Gaussian matrices and hence their moments can be reconstructed as computable sums of products of Gaussian operators. We find that, in the scaling limit, each term in these sums is in one-to-one correspondence with the partition function of the corresponding conformal field theory on the underlying Riemann surface with a given spin structure. The analytical findings have been checked against numerical results for the Ising chain and for the XX spin chain at the critical point.
We report on a systematic approach for the calculation of the negativity in the ground state of a one-dimensional quantum field theory. The partial transpose of the reduced density matrix of a subsystem A = A 1 ∪ A 2 is explicitly constructed as an imaginary-time path integral and from this the replicated traces are obtained. The logarithmic negativity is then the continuation to n → 1 of the traces of the even powers. For pure states, this procedure reproduces the known results. We then apply this method to conformally invariant field theories (CFTs) in several different physical situations for infinite and finite systems and without or with boundaries. In particular, in the case of two adjacent intervals of lengths ℓ 1 ,ℓ 2 in an infinite system, we derive the result ∼ ( c /4)ln(ℓ 1 ℓ 2 /(ℓ 1 + ℓ 2 )), where c is the central charge. For the more complicated case of two disjoint intervals, we show that the negativity depends only on the harmonic ratio of the four end points and so is manifestly scale invariant. We explicitly calculate the scale invariant functions for the replicated traces in the case of the CFT for the free compactified boson, but we have not so far been able to obtain the n → 1 continuation for the negativity even in the limit of large compactification radius. We have checked all our findings against exact numerical results for the harmonic chain which is described by a non-compactified free boson.