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arXiv:1510.07455 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Aspects of entanglement entropy for gauge theories

Ronak M Soni, Sandip P. Trivedi

Published Jan 1, 2016• 151 citations
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Abstract

A definition for the entanglement entropy in a gauge theory was given recently in arXiv:1501.02593. Working on a spatial lattice, it involves embedding the physical state in an extended Hilbert space obtained by taking the tensor product of the Hilbert space of states on each link of the lattice. This extended Hilbert space admits a tensor product decomposition by definition and allows a density matrix and entanglement entropy for the set of links of interest to be defined. Here, we continue the study of this extended Hilbert space definition with particular emphasis on the case of Non-Abelian gauge theories. We extend the electric centre definition of Casini, Huerta and Rosabal to the Non-Abelian case and find that it differs in an important term. We also find that the entanglement entropy does not agree with the maximum number of Bell pairs that can be extracted by the processes of entanglement distillation or dilution, and give protocols which achieve the maximum bound. Finally, we compute the topological entanglement entropy which follows from the extended Hilbert space definition and show that it correctly reproduces the total quantum dimension in a class of Toric code models based on Non-Abelian discrete groups.

DOI
10.1007/jhep01(2016)136

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A definition for the entanglement entropy in a gauge theory was given recently in arXiv:1501.02593. Working on a spatial lattice, it involves embedding the physical state in an extended Hilbert space obtained by taking the tensor product of the Hilbert space of states on each link of the lattice. This extended Hilbert space admits a tensor product decomposition by definition and allows a density matrix and entanglement entropy for the set of links of interest to be defined. Here, we continue the study of this extended Hilbert space definition with particular emphasis on the case of Non-Abelian gauge theories. We extend the electric centre definition of Casini, Huerta and Rosabal to the Non-Abelian case and find that it differs in an important term. We also find that the entanglement entropy does not agree with the maximum number of Bell pairs that can be extracted by the processes of entanglement distillation or dilution, and give protocols which achieve the maximum bound. Finally, we compute the topological entanglement entropy which follows from the extended Hilbert space definition and show that it correctly reproduces the total quantum dimension in a class of Toric code models based on Non-Abelian discrete groups.
We focus on the issue of proper definition of entanglement entropy in lattice gauge theories, and examine a naive definition where gauge invariant states are viewed as elements of an extended Hilbert space which contains gauge non-invariant states as well. Working in the extended Hilbert space, we can define entanglement entropy associated with an arbitrary subset of links, not only for abelian but also for non-abelian theories. We then derive the associated replica formula. We also discuss the issue of gauge invariance of the entanglement entropy. In the Z N gauge theories in arbitrary space dimensions, we show that all the standard properties of the entanglement entropy, e.g. the strong subadditivity, hold in our definition. We study the entanglement entropy for special states, including the topological states for the Z N gauge theories in arbitrary dimensions. We discuss relations of our definition to other proposals.
We propose a definition for the entanglement entropy of a gauge theory on a spatial lattice. Our definition applies to any subset of links in the lattice, and is valid for both Abelian and Non-Abelian gauge theories. For ZN {\mathbb{Z}}_N ZN​ and U(1) theories, without matter, our definition agrees with a particular case of the definition given by Casini, Huerta and Rosabal. We also argue that in general, both for Abelian and Non-Abelian theories, our definition agrees with the entanglement entropy calculated using a definition of the replica trick. Our definition, however, does not agree with some standard ways to measure entanglement, like the number of Bell pairs which can be produced by entanglement distillation.
Entanglement entropy has proven to be an extremely useful concept in quantum field theory. Gauge theories are of particular interest, but for these systems the entanglement entropy is not clearly defined because the physical Hilbert space does not factor as a tensor product according to regions of space. Here we review a definition of entanglement entropy that applies to abelian and nonabelian lattice gauge theories. This entanglement entropy is obtained by embedding the physical Hilbert space into a product of Hilbert spaces associated to regions with boundary. The latter Hilbert spaces include degrees of freedom on the entangling surface that transform like surface charges under the gauge symmetry. These degrees of freedom are shown to contribute to the entanglement entropy, and the form of this contribution is determined by the gauge symmetry. We test our definition using the example of two-dimensional Yang-Mills theory, and find that it agrees with the thermal entropy in de Sitter space, and with the results of the Euclidean replica trick. We discuss the possible implications of this result for more complicated gauge theories, including quantum gravity.
Entanglement entropy is a valuable tool for characterizing the correlation structure of quantum field theories. When applied to gauge theories, subtleties arise which prevent the factorization of the Hilbert space underlying the notion of entanglement entropy. Borrowing techniques from extended topological field theories, we introduce a new definition of entanglement entropy for both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories. Being based on the notion of excitations, it provides a completely relational way of defining regions. Therefore, it naturally applies to background independent theories, e.g. gravity, by circumventing the difficulty of specifying the position of the entangling surface. We relate our construction to earlier proposals and argue that it brings these closer to each other. In particular, it yields the non-Abelian analogue of the ‘magnetic centre choice’, as obtained through an extended-Hilbert-space method, but applied to the recently introduced fusion basis for 3D lattice gauge theories. We point out that the different definitions of entanglement entropy can be related to a choice of (squeezed) vacuum state.
Abstract A definition for the entanglement entropy in both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theories has been given in the literature, based on an extended Hilbert space construction. The result can be expressed as a sum of two terms, a classical term and a quantum term. It has been argued that only the quantum term is extractable through the processes of quantum distillation and dilution. Here we consider gauge theories in the continuum limit and argue that quite generically, the classical piece is dominated by modes with very high momentum, of order the cut-off, in the direction normal to the entangling surface. As a result, we find that the classical term does not contribute to the relative entropy or the mutual information, in the continuum limit, for states which only carry a finite amount of energy above the ground state. We extend these considerations for p-form theories, and also discuss some aspects pertaining to electric-magnetic duality.
We revisit the issue of the geometrical separability of the Hilbert space of physical states on lattice Abelian theories in the context of entanglement entropy. We discuss the conditions under which vectors in the Hilbert space, as well as the gauge-invariant algebra, admit a tensor product decomposition with a geometrical interpretation. With the exception of pure gauge lattices with periodic boundary conditions which contain topological degrees of freedom, we show that the Hilbert space is geometrically separable.