In many-body systems the extent and range of spatial quantum correlations induced by entanglement provide a great deal of information about several qualitative physical properties. One way of studying this information is to examine the scaling behaviour of the ground state entanglement entropy with respect to a scaled version of a distinguished spatial subregion. In various systems the entanglement entropy grows proportionally to the surface area of the subregion which is referred to as an area law. In this thesis we examine the connection between the scaling behaviour of the entanglement entropy and many-body localisation. In recent years it was show that a number of systems, which are known to be in the localised phase, exhibit area laws of the entanglement entropy. It is commonly expected that the entanglement entropies of delocalised ground states do not satisfy area laws, though not many examples of different scaling behaviours have been shown, yet. The aim of this thesis is to provide further examples of violations of area laws in the context of delocalised systems. In three different models we show that the entanglement entropy of the ground states grows at least like a logarithmically enhanced area law. The first part of this thesis, based on joint work with P. Müller and L. Pastur [MPS20], considers the random dimer model. Even though this non-interacting, one-dimensional model is spectrally localised, there exist critical points in its spectrum at which the localisation length diverges. We consider the ground state corresponding to a Fermi energy positioned at one of these critical energies. In the case of small disorder we show a logarithmic lower bound to the expectation of the entanglement entropy. Moreover, we proof a logarithmic lower bound to the finite-volume entanglement en- tropy at these critical points for any disorder strength. In the second part of this thesis, which is based on joint work with P. Müller [MS20], we consider a multi-dimensional continuum Schrödinger operator, which is given by a perturbation of a negative Laplacian by a compactly supported, bounded potential. We establish both an upper and a lower bound to the entanglement entropy corresponding to a positive Fermi energy. These bounds prove that the scaling behaviour of the entanglement entropy is a logarithmically enhanced area law. This is the same scaling behaviour as the one occurring in the case of free fermions, one of the few delocalised systems for which an asymptotic expansion of the entanglement entropy is known. Finally, in the third and last part, based on joint work with C. Fischbacher [FS20], we consider the finite XXZ spin chain with periodic boundary conditions in the Ising phase. We show that for each eigenvalue in the droplet band there exists at least one eigenvector such that the corresponding entanglement entropy grows at least logarithmically, provided the anisotropy parameter ∆ is sufficiently large. In addition, we show a Combes–Thomas estimate for this model, which may be of independent interest.
We consider the two-dimensional ideal Fermi gas subject to a magnetic field which is perpendicular to the Euclidean plane
R2 and whose strength
B(x) at
x∈R2 converges to some
B0>0 as
∥x∥→∞. Furthermore, we allow for an electric potential
Vε which vanishes at infinity. They define the single-particle Landau Hamiltonian of our Fermi gas (up to gauge fixing). Starting from the ground state of this Fermi gas with chemical potential
μ≥B0 we study the asymptotic growth of its bipartite entanglement entropy associated to
LΛ as
L→∞ for some fixed bounded region
Λ⊂R2. We show that its leading order in
L does not depend on the perturbations
Bε:=B0−B and
Vε if they satisfy some mild decay assumptions. Our result holds for all
α-R\' enyi entropies
α>1/3; for
α≤1/3, we have to assume in addition some differentiability of the perturbations
Bε and
Vε. The case of a constant magnetic field
Bε=0 and with
Vε=0 was treated recently for general
μ by Leschke, Sobolev and Spitzer. Our result thus proves the stability of that area law under the same regularity assumptions on the boundary
∂Λ.
Abstract The leading asymptotic large-scale behaviour of the spatially bipartite entanglement entropy (EE) of the free Fermi gas infinitely extended in multidimensional Euclidean space at zero absolute temperature, T = 0, is by now well understood. Here, we present and discuss the first rigorous results for the corresponding EE of thermal equilibrium states at T > 0 . The leading large-scale term of this thermal EE turns out to be twice the first-order finite-size correction to the infinite-volume thermal entropy (density). Not surprisingly, this correction is just the thermal entropy on the interface of the bipartition. However, it is given by a rather complicated integral derived from a semiclassical trace formula for a certain operator on the underlying one-particle Hilbert space. But in the zero-temperature limit T ↓ 0 , the leading large-scale term of the thermal EE considerably simplifies and displays a ln ( 1 / T ) -singularity which one may identify with the known logarithmic enhancement at T = 0 of the so-called area-law scaling.
In a remarkable paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 100503 (2006)], Gioev and Klich conjectured an explicit formula for the leading asymptotic growth of the spatially bipartite von Neumann entanglement entropy of noninteracting fermions in multidimensional Euclidean space at zero temperature. Based on recent progress by one of us (A. V. S.) in semiclassical functional calculus for pseudodifferential operators with discontinuous symbols, we provide here a complete proof of that formula and of its generalization to Rényi entropies of all orders α>0. The special case α=1/2 is also known under the name logarithmic negativity and often considered to be a particularly useful quantification of entanglement. These formulas exhibiting a "logarithmically enhanced area law" have been used already in many publications.
The leading asymptotic large-scale behaviour of the spatially bipartite entanglement entropy (EE) of the free Fermi gas infinitely extended in multidimensional Euclidean space at zero absolute temperature, T = 0, is by now well understood. Here, we present and discuss the first rigorous results for the corresponding EE of thermal equilibrium states at
Tgt0. The leading large-scale term of this thermal EE turns out to be twice the first-order finite-size correction to the infinite-volume thermal entropy (density). Not surprisingly, this correction is just the thermal entropy on the interface of the bipartition. However, it is given by a rather complicated integral derived from a semiclassical trace formula for a certain operator on the underlying one-particle Hilbert space. But in the zero-temperature limit
Tdownarrow0, the leading large-scale term of the thermal EE considerably simplifies and displays a
mathrmln(1/T)-singularity which one may identify with the known logarithmic enhancement at T = 0 of the so-called area-law scaling.
We prove a logarithmically enhanced area law for all Rényi entanglement entropies of the ground state of a free gas of relativistic Dirac fermions. Such asymptotics occur in any dimension if the modulus of the Fermi energy is larger than the mass of the particles and in the massless case at Fermi energy zero in one space dimension. In all other cases of mass, Fermi energy and dimension, the entanglement entropy grows no faster than the area of the involved spatial region. The result is established for a general class of test functions which includes the ones corresponding to Rényi entropies and relies on a recently proved extension of the Widom-Sobolev formula to matrix-valued symbols by the authors.