Universal scaling terms occurring in R'enyi entanglement entropies have the potential to bring new understanding to quantum critical points in free and interacting systems. Quantitative comparisons between analytical continuum theories and numerical calculations on lattice models play a crucial role in advancing such studies. In this paper, we exactly calculate the universal two-cylinder shape dependence of entanglement entropies for free bosons on finite-size square lattices, and compare to approximate functions derived in the continuum using several different Ans"atze. Although none of these Ans"atze are exact in the thermodynamic limit, we find that numerical fits are in good agreement with continuum functions derived using the anti--de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, an extensive mutual information model, and a quantum Lifshitz model. We use fits of our lattice data to these functions to calculate universal scalars defined in the thin-cylinder limit, and compare to values previously obtained for the free boson field theory in the continuum.
Although the leading-order scaling of entanglement entropy is non-universal at a quantum critical point (QCP), sub-leading scaling can contain universal behaviour. Such universal quantities are commonly studied in non-interacting field theories, however it typically requires numerical calculation to access them in interacting theories. In this paper, we use large-scale T = 0 quantum Monte Carlo simulations to examine in detail the second Rényi entropy of entangled regions at the QCP in the transverse-field Ising model in 2 + 1 space–time dimensions—a fixed point for which there is no exact result for the scaling of entanglement entropy. We calculate a universal coefficient of a vertex-induced logarithmic scaling for a polygonal entangled subregion, and compare the result to interacting and non-interacting theories. We also examine the shape-dependence of the Rényi entropy for finite-size toroidal lattices divided into two entangled cylinders by smooth boundaries. Remarkably, we find that the dependence on cylinder length follows a shape-dependent function calculated previously by Stephan et al (2013 New J. Phys. 15 015004) at the QCP corresponding to the 2 + 1 dimensional quantum Lifshitz free scalar field theory. The quality of the fit of our data to this scaling function, as well as the apparent cutoff-independent coefficient that results, presents tantalizing evidence that this function may reflect universal behaviour across these and other very disparate QCPs in 2 + 1 dimensional systems.
We study the universal scaling behavior of the entanglement entropy of critical theories in 2 + 1 dimensions. We specially consider two fermionic scale-invariant models, free massless Dirac fermions and a model of fermions with quadratic band touching, and numerically study the two-cylinder entanglement entropy of the models on the torus. We find that in both cases the entanglement entropy satisfies the area law and has the subleading term which is a scaling function of the aspect ratios of the cylindrical regions. We test the scaling of entanglement in both the free fermion models using three possible scaling functions for the subleading term derived from (a) the quasi-1D conformal field theory, (b) the bosonic quantum Lifshitz model and (c) the holographic AdS/CFT correspondence. For the later case we construct an analytic scaling function using holography, appropriate for critical theories with a gravitational dual description. We find that the subleading term in the fermionic models is well described, for a range of aspect ratios, by the scaling form derived from the quantum Lifshitz model as well as that derived using the AdS/CFT correspondence (in this case only for the Dirac model). For the case where the fermionic models are placed on a square torus we find the fit to the different scaling forms is in agreement to surprisingly high precision.
Abstract We study the von Neumann and Rényi entanglement entropy (EE) of the scale-invariant theories defined on the tori in 2 + 1 and 3 + 1 spacetime dimensions. We focus on the spatial bi-partitions of the torus into two cylinders, and allow for twisted boundary conditions along the non-contractible cycles. Various analytical and numerical results are obtained for the universal EE of the relativistic boson and Dirac fermion conformal field theories (CFTs), the fermionic quadratic band touching and the boson with z = 2 Lifshitz scaling. The shape dependence of the EE clearly distinguishes these theories, although intriguing similarities are found in certain limits. We also study the evolution of the EE when a mass is introduced to detune the system from its scale-invariant point, by employing a renormalized EE that goes beyond a naive subtraction of the area law. In certain cases we find the non-monotonic behavior of the torus EE under RG flow, which distinguishes it from the EE of a disk.
Thanks to Pfaffian techniques, we study the Rényi entanglement entropies and the entanglement spectrum of large subsystems for two-dimensional Rokhsar–Kivelson wavefunctions constructed from a dimer model on the triangular lattice. By including a fugacity t on some suitable bonds, one interpolates between the triangular lattice ( t = 1) and the square lattice ( t = 0). The wavefunction is known to be a massive topological liquid for t > 0 whereas it is a gapless critical state at t = 0. We mainly consider two geometries for the subsystem: that of a semi-infinite cylinder and the disc-like set-up proposed by Kitaev and Preskill (2006 Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 110404). In the cylinder case, the entropies contain an extensive term—proportional to the length of the boundary—and a universal subleading constant s n ( t ). Fitting these cylinder data (up to a perimeter of L = 32 sites) provides s n with a very high numerical accuracy (10 − 9 at t = 1 and 10 − 6 at t = 0.5). In the topological liquid phase we find s n ( t > 0) = − ln2, independent of the fugacity t and the Rényi parameter n . At t = 0 we recover a previously known result, for n < 1 and s n ( t = 0) = − ln(2)/( n − 1) for n > 1. In the disc-like geometry—designed to get rid of the boundary contributions—we find an entropy s n KP ( t 0) = − ln2 in the whole massive phase whatever n > 0, in agreement with the result of Flammia et al (2009 Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 261601). Some results for the gapless limit are discussed.
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 study the scaling of the (basis dependent) Shannon entropy for two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets with N\'eel long-range order. We use a massless free-field description of the gapless spin wave modes and phase space arguments to treat the fact that the finite-size ground state is rotationally symmetric, while there are degenerate physical ground states which break the symmetry. Our results show that the Shannon entropy (and its R\'enyi generalizations) possesses some universal logarithmic term proportional to the number
NNG of Nambu-Goldstone modes. In the case of a torus, we show that
Sn>1≃O(N)+4NNGn−1nlogN and
S1≃O(N)−4NNGlogN, where
N is the total number of sites and
n the R\'enyi index. The result for
n>1 is in reasonable agreement with the quantum Monte Carlo results of Luitz et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 057203 (2014)], and qualitatively similar to those obtained previously for the entanglement entropy. The Shannon entropy of a line subsystem (embedded in the two-dimensional system) is also considered. Finally, we present some density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations for a spin
21 XY model on the square lattice in a cylinder geometry. These numerical data confirm our findings for logarithmic terms in the
n=∞ R\'enyi entropy (also called
−logpmax). They also reveal some universal dependence on the cylinder aspect ratio, in good agreement with the fact that, in that case,
pmax is related to a non-compact free-boson partition function in dimension 1+1.