We study the behavior of entanglement between different degrees of freedom of scattering fermions, based on an exemplary QED scattering process ${e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$. The variation of entanglement entropy between two fermions from an initial state to the final state was computed, with respect to different entanglement between the ingoing particles. This variation of entanglement entropy is found to be proportional to an area quantity, the total cross section. We also study the spin-momentum and helicity-momentum entanglements within one particle in the aforementioned scattering process. The calculations of the relevant variations of mutual information in the same inertial frame reveals that, for a maximally entangled initial state, the scattering between the particles does not affect the degree of both of these entanglements of one particle in the final state. It is also found that the increasing degree of entanglement between two ingoing particles would restrict the generation of entanglement between spin (helicity) and momentum of one outgoing particle. And the entanglement between spin and momentum within one particle in the final state is shown to always be stronger than that for helicity-momentum for a general initial entanglement state, implying significantly distinct properties of entanglement for the helicity and spin perceived by an inertial observer.
We study the behavior of entanglement between different degrees of freedom of scattering fermions, based on an exemplary QED scattering process e+e\ensuremath−\ensuremath→\ensuremathμ+\ensuremathμ\ensuremath−. The variation of entanglement entropy between two fermions from an initial state to the final state was computed, with respect to different entanglement between the ingoing particles. This variation of entanglement entropy is found to be proportional to an area quantity, the total cross section. We also study the spin-momentum and helicity-momentum entanglements within one particle in the aforementioned scattering process. The calculations of the relevant variations of mutual information in the same inertial frame reveals that, for a maximally entangled initial state, the scattering between the particles does not affect the degree of both of these entanglements of one particle in the final state. It is also found that the increasing degree of entanglement between two ingoing particles would restrict the generation of entanglement between spin (helicity) and momentum of one outgoing particle. And the entanglement between spin and momentum within one particle in the final state is shown to always be stronger than that for helicity-momentum for a general initial entanglement state, implying significantly distinct properties of entanglement for the helicity and spin perceived by an inertial observer.
We study the properties of entanglement entropy among scattering particles as observed from different inertial moving frames, based on an exemplary QED process ${e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$. By the explicit calculation of the Wigner rotation, the entanglement entropy of scattering particles is found to be Lorentz invariant. We also study the behavior of the entanglement between spin degrees of freedom for scattering particles in moving frames. This quantity, being found to change with different inertial reference frames, does not exhibit as a Lorentz invariant.
We consider a general quantum field relativistic scattering involving two half-spin fermions, A and B, which are initially entangled with another fermion C that does not participate in the scattering dynamics. We construct general expressions for the reduced spin matrices for the out-state considering a general tripartite spin-entangled state. In particular we study an inelastic QED process at tree-level, namely ${e}^{\ensuremath{-}}{e}^{+}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}$ and a half-spin fermion C as a spectator particle which can be entangled to the AB system in the following ways: W state, GHZ state, $|{\mathrm{A}}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}⟩\ensuremath{\bigotimes}|{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}{⟩}_{\mathrm{BC}}$, and $|{\mathrm{A}}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}⟩\ensuremath{\bigotimes}|{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}{⟩}_{\mathrm{BC}}$, where ${|{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}⟩,|{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}}^{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}⟩}$ are the Bell basis states and $|{\mathrm{A}}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}⟩$ is a spin superposition state of system A. We calculate the von Neumann entropy variation before and after the scattering for the particle C and show that spin measurements in C contain numerical information about the total cross section of the process. We compare the initial states W and GHZ as well as study the role played by the parameter $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ in the evaluation of the entropy variations and the cross section encoded in the spectator particle.
We study entanglement dynamics among helicity degrees of freedom in quantum electrodynamics (QED) scattering processes. For generic initial states, we consider scattering at fixed momentum, corresponding to a generalized measurement described by a positive operator-valued measure, resulting in a post-measurement state. Such processes are modeled in terms of quantum maps, whose spectral structure fully determines the associated entanglement dynamics. For scattering involving fermions only, maximal entanglement present in the initial state is always preserved. Moreover, iterating the corresponding quantum maps on arbitrary initial states, we obtain the fixed points of the maps, which, in the largest number of cases, are asymptotic (pure) maximally entangled states. The structure of the maps also accounts for the entanglement dynamics in processes involving both fermions and photons. The defining properties of these maps originate from discrete symmetries of the QED interaction.
For a massive spin 1/2 field, we present the reduced spin and helicity density matrix, respectively, for the same pure one particle state. Their relation has also been developed. Furthermore, we calculate and compare the corresponding entanglement entropy for spin and helicity within the same inertial reference frame. Due to the distinct dependence on momentum degree of freedom between spin and helicity states, the resultant helicity entropy is different from that of spin in general. In particular, we find that both helicity entanglement for a spin eigenstate and spin entanglement for a right handed or left handed helicity state do not vanish, and their Von Neumann entropy has no dependence on the specific form of momentum distribution, as long as it is isotropic.
We construct the entanglement entropy of a general scattering process between one particle species (denoted as A) and the rest of the final state. Assuming a pure initial momentum eigenstate, we show that the reduced density matrix in particle A's Fock space is block-diagonal in zero-, one- and multi-particle states, and is diagonal in the momentum basis for the one-particle state. As a result, we could write down the Von Neumann entropy of particle A, SA, in terms of scattering probabilities and differential cross sections, assuming no more than one particle A is produced in the final state. SA contains the information of both the total scattering probabilities (or cross sections) and the differential distributions --- the latter depends on a phase-space resolution factor as a result of the infinite-dimensional momentum Hilbert space. Our result is general and model-independent since we consider the full final state from time evolution (S∣i⟩) rather than a specific outcome, and is applicable as long as the probability for producing multiple particle A is subleading. We also obtain the n≥2 Tsallis and Rényi entropies in our framework and find out that, at the leading order, they are proportional to the total scattering probability and carry no differential information.
In this paper, we study the entanglement property of a four-particle system. In this system, two initially entangled electrons A and C are scattered by two uncorrelated positrons B and D, respectively. We calculate the entanglements among the particles both before and after the double QED scattering ($AB\ensuremath{\rightarrow}AB,CD\ensuremath{\rightarrow}CD$). We find that the change of entanglement entropy between subsystems A and B during the scattering process is proportional to the total cross section, ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\mathrm{tot}}={\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{AB}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{CD}$. Even though there is no direct interaction between subsystems A and C (or B and D), the scattering process induces entanglement change among them which is also proportional to ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\mathrm{tot}}$. This result shows some kind of entanglement sharing property in multipartite system. In order to further investigate the entanglement sharing, we calculate the entanglement monotones that quantify the genuine multipartite entanglement in a multipartite system. For our chosen scattering process, ${e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, however, we find that the outgoing state is a W-type four-partite entangled state that has no genuine four-partite entanglement.