Abstract We investigate the time evolution of the subsystem trace distance and Schatten distances after local operator quenches in two-dimensional conformal field theory (CFT) and in one-dimensional quantum spin chains. We focus on the case of a subsystem being an interval embedded in the infinite line. The initial state is prepared by inserting a local operator in the ground state of the theory. We only consider the cases in which the inserted local operator is a primary field or a sum of several primaries. While a nonchiral primary operator can excite both left-moving and right-moving quasiparticles, a holomorphic primary operator only excites a right-moving quasiparticle and an anti-holomorphic primary operator only excites a left-moving one. The reduced density matrix (RDM) of an interval hosting a quasiparticle is orthogonal to the RDM of the interval without any quasiparticles. Moreover, the RDMs of two intervals hosting quasiparticles at different positions are also orthogonal to each other. We calculate numerically the entanglement entropy, Rényi entropy, trace distance, and Schatten distances in time-dependent states excited by different local operators in the critical Ising and XX spin chains. These results match the CFT predictions in the proper limit.
We report on a systematic replica approach to calculate the subsystem trace distance for a generic quantum field theory. This method has been recently introduced in [J. Zhang, P. Ruggiero, P. Calabrese, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 141602 (2019)], of which this work is a completion. The trace distance between two reduced density matrices
ρA and
σA is obtained from the moments
tr(ρA−σA)n and taking the limit
n→1 of the traces of the even powers. We focus here on the case of a subsystem consisting of a single interval of length
ℓ embedded in the low lying eigenstates of a one-dimensional critical system of length
L, a situation that can be studied exploiting the path integral form of the reduced density matrices of two-dimensional conformal field theories. The trace distance turns out to be a {\it scale invariant universal function} of
ℓ/L. Here we complete our previous work by providing detailed derivations of all results and further new formulas for the distances between several low-lying states in two-dimensional free massless compact boson and fermion theories. Remarkably, for one special case in the bosonic theory and for another in the fermionic one, we obtain the exact trace distance, as well as the Schatten
n-distance, for an interval of arbitrary length, while in generic case we have a general form for the first term in the expansion in powers of
ℓ/L. The analytical predictions in conformal field theories are tested against exact numerical calculations in XX and Ising spin chains, finding perfect agreement. As a byproduct, new results are also obtained for other entanglement-related quantities, such as the relative entropy and the fidelity.
Abstract We report on a systematic replica approach to calculate the subsystem trace distance for a quantum field theory. This method has been recently introduced in [J. Zhang, P. Ruggiero and P. Calabrese, Phys. Rev. Lett.122(2019) 141602 ], of which this work is a completion. The trace distance between two reduced density matricesρAandσAis obtained from the moments tr(ρA− σA)nand taking the limitn →1 of the traces of the even powers. We focus here on the case of a subsystem consisting of a single interval of lengthℓembedded in the low lying eigenstates of a one-dimensional critical system of lengthL, a situation that can be studied exploiting the path integral form of the reduced density matrices of two-dimensional conformal field theories. The trace distance turns out to be ascale invariant universal functionofℓ/L. Here we complete our previous work by providing detailed derivations of all results and further new formulas for the distances between several low-lying states in two-dimensional free massless compact boson and fermion theories. Remarkably, for one special case in the bosonic theory and for another in the fermionic one, we obtain the exact trace distance, as well as the Schattenn-distance, for an interval of arbitrary length, while in generic case we have a general form for the first term in the expansion in powers ofℓ/L. The analytical predictions in conformal field theories are tested against exact numerical calculations in XX and Ising spin chains, finding perfect agreement. As a byproduct, new results in two-dimensional CFT are also obtained for other entanglement-related quantities, such as the relative entropy and the fidelity.
Abstract We study the excited state Rényi entropy and subsystem Schatten distance in the two-dimensional free massless non-compact bosonic field theory, which is a conformal field theory. The discretization of the free non-compact bosonic theory gives the harmonic chain with local couplings. We consider the field theory excited states that correspond to the harmonic chain states with excitations of more than one quasiparticle, which we call multi-particle states. This extends the previous work by the same authors to more general excited states. In the field theory we obtain the exact Rényi entropy and subsystem Schatten distance for several low-lying states. We obtain short interval expansion of the Rényi entropy and subsystem Schatten distance for general excited states, which display different universal scaling behaviors in the gapless and extremely gapped limits of the non-compact bosonic theory. In the locally coupled harmonic chain we calculate numerically the excited state Rényi entropy and subsystem Schatten distance using the wave function method. We find excellent matches of the analytical results in the field theory and numerical results in the gapless limit of the harmonic chain. We also make some preliminary investigations of the Rényi entropy and the subsystem Schatten distance in the extremely gapped limit of the harmonic chain.
We develop a systematic method to calculate the trace distance between two reduced density matrices in 1+1 dimensional quantum field theories. The approach exploits the path integral representation of the reduced density matrices and an ad hoc replica trick. We then extensively apply this method to the calculation of the distance between reduced density matrices of one interval of length ℓ in eigenstates of conformal field theories. When the interval is short, using the operator product expansion of twist operators, we obtain a universal form for the leading order in ℓ of the trace distance. We compute the trace distances among the reduced density matrices of several low lying states in two-dimensional free massless boson and fermion theories. We compare our analytic conformal results with numerical calculations in XX and Ising spin chains finding perfect agreement.
We study the relative entropy and the trace square distance, both of which measure the distance between reduced density matrices of two excited states in two dimensional conformal field theories. We find a general formula for the relative entropy between two primary states with the same conformal dimension in the limit of a single small interval and find that in this case the relative entropy is proportional to the trace square distance. We check our general formulae by calculating the relative entropy between two generalized free fields and the trace square distance between the spin and disorder operators of the critical Ising model. We also give the leading term of the relative entropy in the small interval expansion when the two operators have different conformal dimensions. This turns out to be universal when the CFT has no primaires lighter than the stress tensor. The result reproduces the previously known special cases.
Abstract We study the Rényi entropy and subsystem distances on one interval for the finite size and thermal states in the critical XY chains, focusing on the critical Ising chain and XX chain with zero transverse field. We construct numerically the reduced density matrices and calculate the von Neumann entropy, Rényi entropy, subsystem trace distance, Schatten two-distance, and relative entropy. As the continuum limit of the critical Ising chain and XX chain with zero field are, respectively, the two-dimensional free massless Majorana and Dirac fermion theories, which are conformal field theories, we compare the spin chain numerical results with the analytical results in conformal field theories and find perfect matches in the continuum limit.