Abstract Characterizing the entanglement of matrix degrees of freedom is essential for understanding the holographic emergence of spacetime. The Quantum Hall Matrix Model is a gauged U(N ) matrix quantum mechanics with two matrices whose ground state is known exactly and describes an emergent spatial disk with incompressible bulk dynamics. We define and compute an entanglement entropy in the ground state associated to a cut through the disk. There are two contributions. A collective field describing the eigenvalues of one of the matrices gives a gauge-invariant chiral boundary mode leading to an expected logarithmic entanglement entropy. Further, the cut through the bulk splits certain ‘off-diagonal’ matrix elements that must be duplicated and associated to both sides of the cut. Sewing these duplicated modes together in a gauge-invariant way leads to a bulk ‘area law’ contribution to the entanglement entropy. All of these entropies are regularized by finite N.
Abstract Characterizing the entanglement of matrix degrees of freedom is essential for understanding the holographic emergence of spacetime. The Quantum Hall Matrix Model is a gauged U(N ) matrix quantum mechanics with two matrices whose ground state is known exactly and describes an emergent spatial disk with incompressible bulk dynamics. We define and compute an entanglement entropy in the ground state associated to a cut through the disk. There are two contributions. A collective field describing the eigenvalues of one of the matrices gives a gauge-invariant chiral boundary mode leading to an expected logarithmic entanglement entropy. Further, the cut through the bulk splits certain ‘off-diagonal’ matrix elements that must be duplicated and associated to both sides of the cut. Sewing these duplicated modes together in a gauge-invariant way leads to a bulk ‘area law’ contribution to the entanglement entropy. All of these entropies are regularized by finite N.
Abstract Motivated by the Bekenstein–Hawkingformula and the area law behaviour of entanglement entropy, we propose that in any UV finite theory of quantum gravity with a smooth spacetime, the total entropy for a pure state in a co-dimension one spatial region, to leading order, is given by S = A 4 G N , where A is the area of the co-dimension two boundary. In the context of Dp brane holography we show that for some specially chosen regions bulk entanglement can be mapped to ‘target space’ entanglement in the boundary theory. Our conjecture then leads to a precise proposal for target space entanglement in the boundary theory at strong coupling and large N . In particular, it leads to the conclusion that the target space entanglement would scale like O ( N 2 ) which is quite plausible in a system with O ( N 2 ) degrees of freedom. Recent numerical advances in studying the D 0 brane system hold out the hope that this proposal can be tested in a precise way in the future.
Research at the intersection of quantum gravity and quantum information theory has seen significant success in describing the emergence of spacetime and gravity from quantum states whose entanglement entropy approximately obeys an area law. In a different direction, the Kaluza-Klein proposal aims to recover gauge symmetries by means of dimensional reduction of higher-dimensional gravitational theories. Integrating both, gravitational and gauge degrees of freedom in 3+1 dimensions may be obtained upon dimensional reduction of higher-dimensional emergent gravity. To this end, we show that entangled systems of two and three qubits can be associated with 5+1 and 9+1 dimensional spacetimes respectively, which are reduced to 3+1 dimensions upon singling out a preferred complex direction. In the latter case, this reduction is invariant under a residual SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1)/Z6 symmetry, the Standard Model gauge group. This motivates a picture in which spacetime emerges from the area law-contribution to the entanglement entropy, while gauge and matter degrees of freedom are due to area law-violating terms. We remark on a possible natural origin of the chirality of the weak force in the given construction. Furthermore, we highlight the possibility of using this construction in quantum simulations of Standard Model fields.
Boundaries constitute a rich playground for quantum many-body systems because they can lead to novel degrees of freedom such as protected boundary states in topological phases. Here, we study the ground state of integer quantum Hall systems in the presence of boundaries through the reduced density matrix of a spatial region. We work in the lowest Landau level and choose our region to intersect the boundary at arbitrary angles. The entanglement entropy (EE) contains a logarithmic contribution coming from the chiral edge modes, and matches the corresponding conformal field theory prediction. We uncover an additional contribution due to the boundary corners. We characterize the angle dependence of this boundary corner term, and compare it to the bulk corner EE. We further analyze the spatial structure of entanglement via the eigenstates associated with the reduced density matrix. The influence of the physical boundary and the region's geometry on the reduced density matrix is thus clarified. Finally, we test a bulk-boundary correspondence for the EE originally obtained for quantum critical systems such as conformal field theories in two spatial dimensions, and discuss the implications of our findings for other topological phases.
Generally speaking, entanglement entropy (EE) between two subregions of a gapped quantum many-body state is proportional to the area/length of their interface due to the short-range quantum correlation. However, the so-called area law is violated logarithmically in a quantum critical phase. Moreover, the subleading correction exists in long-range entangled topological phases. It is referred to as topological EE which is related to the quantum dimension of the collective excitation in the bulk. Furthermore, if a non-smooth sharp angle is in the presence of the subsystem boundary, a universal angle dependent geometric contribution is expected to appear in the subleading correction. In this work, we simultaneously explore the geometric and edge contributions in the integer quantum Hall (IQH) state and its edge reconstruction in a unified bipartite method. Their scaling is found to be consistent with conformal field theory (CFT) predictions and recent results of particle number fluctuation calculations.
We review aspects of entanglement entropy in the quantum mechanics of N×N matrices, i.e., matrix quantum mechanics (MQM), at large N. In doing so, we review standard models of MQM and their relation to string theory, D-brane physics, and emergent non-commutative geometries. We overview, in generality, definitions of subsystems and entanglement entropies in theories with gauge redundancy and discuss the additional structure required for definining subsystems in MQMs possessing a U(N) gauge redundancy. In connecting these subsystems to non-commutative geometry, we review several works on ‘target space entanglement,’ and entanglement in non-commutative field theories, highlighting the conditions in which target space entanglement entropy displays an ‘area law’ at large N. We summarize several example calculations of entanglement entropy in non-commutative geometries and MQMs. We review recent work in connecting the area law entanglement of MQM to the Ryu–Takayanagi formula, highlighting the conditions in which U(N) invariance implies a minimal area formula for the entanglement entropy at large N. Finally, we make comments on open questions and research directions.
To understand an emergent spacetime is to understand the emergence of locality. Entanglement entropy is a powerful diagnostic of locality, because locality leads to a large amount of short distance entanglement. Two-dimensional string theory is among the very simplest instances of an emergent spatial dimension. We compute the entanglement entropy in the large-N matrix quantum mechanics dual to two-dimensional string theory in the semiclassical limit of weak string coupling. We isolate a logarithmically large, but finite, contribution that corresponds to the short distance entanglement of the tachyon field in the emergent spacetime. From the spacetime point of view, the entanglement is regulated by a nonperturbative "graininess" of space.