Abstract In this work, we study the time evolution of the entanglement Hamiltonian during the process of thermalization in a (1+1)-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) after a quantum quench from a special class of initial states. In particular, we focus on a subsystem which is a finite interval at the end of a semi-infinite line. Based on conformal mappings, the exact forms of both entanglement Hamiltonian and entanglement spectrum of the subsystem can be obtained. Aside from various interesting features, it is found that in the infinite time limit the entanglement Hamiltonian and entanglement spectrum are exactly the same as those in the thermal ensemble. The entanglement spectrum approaches the steady state spectrum exponentially in time. We also study the modular flows generated by the entanglement Hamiltonian in Minkowski spacetime, which provides us with an intuitive picture of how the entanglement propagates and how the subsystem is thermalized. Furthermore, the effect of a generic initial state is also discussed.
Abstract For two-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs) in the ground state, it is known that a conformal interface along the entanglement cut can suppress the entanglement entropy from to , where L is the length of the subsystem A , and is the effective central charge which depends on the transmission property of the conformal interface. In this work, by making use of conformal mappings, we show that a conformal interface has the same effect on entanglement evolution in non-equilibrium cases, including global, local and certain inhomogeneous quantum quenches. I.e. a conformal interface suppresses the time evolution of entanglement entropy by effectively replacing the central charge c with , where is exactly the same as that in the ground state case. We confirm this conclusion by a numerical study on a critical fermion chain. Furthermore, based on the quasi-particle picture, we conjecture that this conclusion holds for an arbitrary quantum quench in CFTs, as long as the initial state can be described by a regularized conformal boundary state.
Abstract We study the temporal evolution of the entanglement Hamiltonian of an interval after a global quantum quench in free lattice models in one spatial dimension. In a harmonic chain we explore a quench of the frequency parameter. In a chain of free fermions at half filling we consider the evolution of the ground state of a fully dimerised chain through the homogeneous Hamiltonian. We focus on critical evolution Hamiltonians. The temporal evolutions of the gaps in the entanglement spectrum are analysed. The entanglement Hamiltonians in these models are characterised by matrices that provide also contours for the entanglement entropies. The temporal evolution of these contours for the entanglement entropy is studied, also by employing existing conformal field theory results for the semi-infinite line and the quasi-particle picture for the global quench.
We study the temporal evolution of the entanglement hamiltonian of an interval after a global quantum quench in free lattice models in one spatial dimension. In a harmonic chain we explore a quench of the frequency parameter. In a chain of free fermions at half filling we consider the evolution of the ground state of a fully dimerised chain through the homogeneous hamiltonian. We focus on critical evolution hamiltonians. The temporal evolutions of the gaps in the entanglement spectrum are analysed. The entanglement hamiltonians in these models are characterised by matrices that provide also contours for the entanglement entropies. The temporal evolution of these contours for the entanglement entropy is studied, also by employing existing conformal field theory results for the semi-infinite line and the quasi-particle picture for the global quench.
Abstract Entanglement or modular Hamiltonians play a crucial role in the investigation of correlations in quantum field theories. In particular, in 1 + 1 space–time dimensions, the spectra of entanglement Hamiltonians of conformal field theories (CFTs) for certain geometries are related to the spectra of the physical Hamiltonians of corresponding boundary CFTs. As a result, conformal invariance allows exact computation of the spectra of the entanglement Hamiltonians for these models. In this work, we perform this computation of the spectrum of the entanglement Hamiltonian for the free compactified boson CFT over a finite spatial interval. We compare the analytical results obtained for the continuum theory with numerical simulations of a lattice-regularized model for the CFT using density matrix renormalization group technique. To that end, we use a lattice regularization provided by superconducting quantum electronic circuits, built out of Josephson junctions and capacitors. Up to non-universal effects arising due to the lattice regularization, the numerical results are compatible with the predictions of the exact computations.
We consider a quantum quench in a finite system of length
L described by a
1+1-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT), of central charge
c, from a state with finite energy density corresponding to an inverse temperature $\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\ll}L$. For times
t such that $\ensuremath{\ell}/2<t<(L\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\ell})/2$ the reduced density matrix of a subsystem of length $\ensuremath{\ell}$ is exponentially close to a thermal density matrix. We compute exactly the overlap
F of the state at time
t with the initial state and show that in general it is exponentially suppressed at large $L/\ensuremath{\beta}$. However, for minimal models with
c<1 (more generally, rational CFTs), at times which are integer multiples of
L/2 (for periodic boundary conditions,
L for open boundary conditions) there are (in general, partial) revivals at which
F is
O(1), leading to an eventual complete revival with
F=1. There is also interesting structure at all rational values of
t/L, related to properties of the CFT under modular transformations. At early times $t\ensuremath{\ll}(L\ensuremath{\beta}{)}^{1/2}$ there is a universal decay $\mathcal{F}\ensuremath{\sim}\mathrm{exp}(\ensuremath{-}(\ensuremath{\pi}c/3)L{t}^{2}/\ensuremath{\beta}({\ensuremath{\beta}}^{2}+4{t}^{2}))$. The effect of an irrelevant nonintegrable perturbation of the CFT is to progressively broaden each revival at
t=nL/2 by an amount
O(n1/2).
We study the time evolution of the entanglement negativity after a local quantum quench in (1 + 1)-dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs), which we introduce by suddenly joining two initially decoupled CFTs at their end points. We calculate the negativity evolution for both adjacent intervals and disjoint intervals explicitly. For two adjacent intervals, the entanglement negativity grows logarithmically in time right after the quench. After developing a plateau-like feature, the entanglement negativity drops to the ground-state value. For the case of two spatially separated intervals, a light-cone behavior is observed in the negativity evolution; in addition, a long-range entanglement, which is independent of the distance between two intervals, can be created. Our results agree with the heuristic picture that quasiparticles, which carry entanglement, are emitted from the joining point and propagate freely through the system. Our analytical results are confirmed by numerical calculations based on a critical harmonic chain.