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arXiv:1502.03826 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Perturbative entanglement entropy in nonlocal theories

Charles Rabideau

Published Sep 1, 2015• 7 citations
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Abstract

Entanglement entropy in the vacuum state of local field theories exhibits an area law. However, nonlocal theories at large N and strong coupling violate this area law. In these theories, the leading divergence in the entanglement entropy is extensive for regions smaller than the effective nonlocality scale and proportional to this effective nonlocality scale for regions larger than it. This raises the question: is a volume law a generic feature of nonlocal theories, or is it only present at strong coupling and large N ? This paper investigates entanglement entropy of large regions in weakly coupled non-local theories, to leading order in the coupling. The two theories studied are ϕ 4 theory on the noncommutative plane and ϕ 4 theory with a dipole type nonlocal modification using a fixed nonlocality scale. Both theories are found to follow an area law to first order in the coupling, hence no evidence is found for a volume law. This indicates that, perturbatively the nonlocal interactions considered are not generating sufficient entanglement at distances of the nonlocality scale to change the leading divergence, at least to first order in the coupling. An argument against volume laws at higher orders is also presented.

DOI
10.1007/jhep09(2015)180

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Entanglement entropy in the vacuum state of local field theories exhibits an area law. However, nonlocal theories at large N and strong coupling violate this area law. In these theories, the leading divergence in the entanglement entropy is extensive for regions smaller than the effective nonlocality scale and proportional to this effective nonlocality scale for regions larger than it. This raises the question: is a volume law a generic feature of nonlocal theories, or is it only present at strong coupling and large N ? This paper investigates entanglement entropy of large regions in weakly coupled non-local theories, to leading order in the coupling. The two theories studied are ϕ 4 theory on the noncommutative plane and ϕ 4 theory with a dipole type nonlocal modification using a fixed nonlocality scale. Both theories are found to follow an area law to first order in the coupling, hence no evidence is found for a volume law. This indicates that, perturbatively the nonlocal interactions considered are not generating sufficient entanglement at distances of the nonlocality scale to change the leading divergence, at least to first order in the coupling. An argument against volume laws at higher orders is also presented.
We compute holographic entanglement entropy in two strongly coupled nonlocal field theories: the dipole and the noncommutative deformations of SYM theory. We find that entanglement entropy in the dipole theory follows a volume law for regions smaller than the length scale of nonlocality and has a smooth cross-over to an area law for larger regions. In contrast, in the noncommutative theory the entanglement entropy follows a volume law for up to a critical length scale at which a phase transition to an area law occurs. The critical length scale increases as the UV cutoff is raised, which is indicative of UV/IR mixing and implies that entanglement entropy in the noncommutative theory follows a volume law for arbitrary large regions when the size of the region is fixed as the UV cutoff is removed to infinity. Comparison of behaviour between these two theories allows us to explain the origin of the volume law. Since our holographic duals are not asymptotically AdS, minimal area surfaces used to compute holographic entanglement entropy have novel behaviours near the boundary of the dual spacetime. We discuss implications of our results on the scrambling (thermalization) behaviour of these nonlocal field theories. ar X iv
We study different aspects of quantum entanglement and its measures, including entanglement entropy in the vacuum state of a certain Lifshitz free scalar theory. We present simple intuitive arguments based on “non-local” effects of this theory that the scaling of entanglement entropy depends on the dynamical exponent as a characteristic parameter of the theory. The scaling is such that in the massless theory for small entangling regions it leads to area law in the Lorentzian limit and volume law in the z → ∞ limit. We present strong numerical evidences in (1+1) and (2+1)-dimensions in support of this behavior. In (2 + 1)-dimensions we also study some shape dependent aspects of entanglement. We argue that in the massless limit corner contributions are no more additive for large enough dynamical exponent due to non-local effects of Lifshitz theories. We also comment on possible holographic duals of such theories based on the sign of tripartite information.
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, $\ensuremath{\alpha}$. In the 1D case, we are able to show that the central charge appearing in the universal entropy expressions for large subregions is simply related to the locality scale. These results are demonstrated by exact diagonalizations of the corresponding discrete lattice fermion models. Within the Ryu-Takayanagi holographic picture, the relation between the central charge and the locality scale suggest a dual spacetime in which the size of the flat UV portion and the radius of anti--de Sitter in the IR are both proportional to the locality scale, $\ensuremath{\alpha}$.
A bstract We investigate various aspects of capacity of entanglement in certain setups whose entanglement entropy becomes extensive and obeys a volume law. In particular, considering geometric decomposition of the Hilbert space, we study this measure both in the vacuum state of a family of non-local scalar theories and also in the squeezed states of a local scalar theory. We also evaluate field space capacity of entanglement between interacting scalar field theories. We present both analytical and numerical evidences for the volume law scaling of this quantity in different setups and discuss how these results are consistent with the behavior of other entanglement measures including Renyi entropies. Our study reveals some generic properties of the capacity of entanglement and the corresponding reduced density matrix in the specific regimes of the parameter space. Finally, by comparing entanglement entropy and capacity of entanglement, we discuss some implications of our results on the existence of consistent holographic duals for the models in question.
From the partition function for two classes of classically nonlocal actions containing the fractional Laplacian, we show that as long as there exists a suitable (nonlocal) Hilbert-space transform the underlying action can be mapped onto a purely local theory. In all such cases the partition function is equivalent to that of a local theory and an area law for the entanglement entropy obtains. When such a reduction fails, the entanglement entropy deviates strongly from an area law and can in some cases scale as the volume. As these two criteria are coincident, we conjecture that they are equivalent and provide the ultimate test for locality of Gaussian theories rather than a simple inspection of the explicit operator content.
Nonlocal interactions are known to generate volume-law entanglement entropy. However, their deeper impact on the fine structure of quantum correlations remains a key open question. In this work, we explore a bosonic nonlocal field theory, examining correlation measures beyond entanglement entropy, namely, mutual information and tripartite information. Using numerical lattice simulations, we show that the nonlocality scale, AAA, not only determines the onset of volume-law behavior but also leads to striking features: notably, extremely long-range mutual information and an unusual monogamy structure. In this regime, increasing the separation between large regions can paradoxically enhance their multipartite entanglement. Through holographic duality, we verify that the Ryu-Takayanagi formula correctly captures the volume-law scaling of entropy. Yet, a significant tension emerges: while the field theory reveals rich spatial correlations, the holographic model predicts a complete suppression of both mutual and tripartite information in the volume-law phase. This non-monogamous behavior in the holographic description stands in sharp contrast to the monogamous and highly structured entanglement observed in the field theory. Our results demonstrate that nonlocality gives rise to quantum states of such complexity that conventional geometric models of spacetime fall short. This points to the need for a new framework that goes beyond geometry to fully capture the nature of these correlations.