Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2610.10704

Scattering entanglement entropy between one particle species and the others

Yuan-Hao Zheng, Jiayin Gu

hep-thhep-phquant-phSubmitted Oct 7, 2026• Announced Oct 9, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

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 $A$, $S_A$, in terms of scattering probabilities and differential cross sections, assuming no more than one particle $A$ is produced in the final state. $S_A$ 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 ($S|i\rangle$) rather than a specific outcome, and is applicable as long as the probability for producing multiple particle $A$ is subleading. We also obtain the $n\geq2$ 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.

Comments
9 pages, 0 figures

Related papers

Entanglement and scattering in quantum electrodynamics: S matrix information from an entangled spectator particle

Juan D. Fonseca, Brigitte Hiller, Jonas B. Araujo +2 more

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.

arXiv:2112.01300•Physical review. D/Physical review. D.•Sep 20, 2022•19 citations

Elastic cross section is entanglement entropy

Ian Low, Z.W. Yin

We present universal relations between entanglement entropy, which quantifies the quantum correlation between subsystems, and the cross section, which is the primary observable for high-energy particle scattering, by employing a careful formulation of wave packets for the incoming particles. For 2-to-2 elastic scattering with no initial entanglement and subdividing the system along particle labels, we show that both the Rényi and Tsallis entropies in the final states are directly proportional to the elastic cross section in units of the transverse size for the initial wave packets, which is then interpreted as the elastic scattering probability. The relations do not depend on the underlying dynamics of the quantum field theory and are valid to all orders in coupling strengths. Furthermore, computing quantum correlations between momentum and nonkinematic data leads to entanglement entropies expressed as various semi-inclusive elastic cross sections. Our result gives rise to a novel “area law” for entanglement entropy in a two-body system.

arXiv:2410.22414•Physical review. D/Physical review. D.•Mar 31, 2025•16 citations

Variation of entanglement entropy and mutual information in fermion-fermion scattering

Jinbo Fan, Yanbin Deng, Yong-Chang Huang

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.

arXiv:1703.07911•Physical review. D/Physical review. D.•Mar 21, 2017•29 citations

Measuring QED cross sections via entanglement

Jonas B. Araujo, B. Hiller, I. G. da Paz +3 more

We considered a QED scattering ($AB\ensuremath{\rightarrow}AB$), in which $B$ is initially entangled with a third particle ($C$) that does not participate directly in the scattering. The effect of the scattering over $C$'s final state was evaluated and we noted coherence (off-diagonal) terms were created, which led to non-null values for $⟨{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}⟩$ and $⟨{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}⟩$ that are, in principle, measurable in a Stern-Gerlach apparatus. We chose a particular QED scattering (${e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$) and found that $⟨{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}⟩$ and $⟨{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}⟩$ are proportional to the total cross section (${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\text{total}}$) of the $AB$ scattering, besides being maximal if $BC$'s initial state is taken as a Bell basis. Furthermore, we calculated the initial and final mutual information ${I}_{AC}$ and ${I}_{BC}$, and noticed an increase (decrease) in ${I}_{AC}$ (${I}_{BC}$), which indicates that, after $AB$ interact, the total amount of correlations ($\mathrm{quantum}+\mathrm{classical}$) is distributed among the 3 subsystems.

arXiv:1907.10466•Physical review. D/Physical review. D.•Nov 19, 2019•19 citations

Entanglement entropy of scattering particles

R. Peschanski, Shigenori Seki

We study the entanglement entropy between the two outgoing particles in an elastic scattering process. It is formulated within an S-matrix formalism using the partial wave expansion of two-body states, which plays a significant role in our computation. As a result, we obtain a novel formula that expresses the entanglement entropy in a high energy scattering by the use of physical observables, namely the elastic and total cross sections and a physical bound on the impact parameter range, related to the elastic differential cross-section.

arXiv:1602.00720•Physics Letters B•May 4, 2016•88 citations

Entanglement spectrum and Schmidt mode evolution during two-particle scattering

Arsam Najafian, Mark Van Raamsdonk

A particle initially in a pure state but interacting with some environment evolves into a discrete ensemble of pure states, the eigenstates of its reduced density operator, with ensemble probabilities given by the corresponding eigenvalues. In this work, we use numerics to present explicit results for the time-dependence of these eigenvalues and eigenstates for simple scattering experiments in one and two dimensions. This provides a time-resolved picture of the scattering process, showing in detail how an initial state described entirely in terms of continuous parameters evolves into a discrete set of possible outcomes, each with an associated probability and time-evolving wavefunction. We find that for scattering of Gaussian wavepackets in one dimension, the late time spectrum is dominated by two large eigenvalues nearly equal to the transmission and reflection probabilities associated with the central value of momentum. The corresponding eigenstates appear as single-peaked reflected or transmitted wavepackets. The remaining smaller eigenvalues, which increase to a maximum during scattering and then decrease to small values, correspond to reflected or transmitted wavepackets with multiple spatially separated parts. In this case and also for two-dimensional scattering, we find that successively smaller eigenvalues correspond to probability distributions with successively more peaks. These multi-peaked states correspond to outcomes of the scattering experiment where a particle initially in a single wavepacket ends up in a superposition of separated wavepackets after scattering.

quant-pharXiv:2512.02239•Dec 3, 2025•0 citations
We construct the entanglement entropy of a general scattering process between one particle species (denoted as AAA) and the rest of the final state. Assuming a pure initial momentum eigenstate, we show that the reduced density matrix in particle AAA'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 AAA, SAS_ASA​, in terms of scattering probabilities and differential cross sections, assuming no more than one particle AAA is produced in the final state. SAS_ASA​ 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⟩S|i\rangleS∣i⟩) rather than a specific outcome, and is applicable as long as the probability for producing multiple particle AAA is subleading. We also obtain the n≥2n\geq2n≥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.
We consider a general quantum field relativistic scattering involving two half-spin fermions, AAA and BBB, which are initially entangled with another fermion CCC 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 CCC as a spectator particle which can be entangled to the ABABAB 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 AAA. We calculate the von Neumann entropy variation before and after the scattering for the particle CCC and show that spin measurements in CCC 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 present universal relations between entanglement entropy, which quantifies the quantum correlation between subsystems, and the cross section, which is the primary observable for high-energy particle scattering, by employing a careful formulation of wave packets for the incoming particles. For 2-to-2 elastic scattering with no initial entanglement and subdividing the system along particle labels, we show that both the Rényi and Tsallis entropies in the final states are directly proportional to the elastic cross section in units of the transverse size for the initial wave packets, which is then interpreted as the elastic scattering probability. The relations do not depend on the underlying dynamics of the quantum field theory and are valid to all orders in coupling strengths. Furthermore, computing quantum correlations between momentum and nonkinematic data leads to entanglement entropies expressed as various semi-inclusive elastic cross sections. Our result gives rise to a novel “area law” for entanglement entropy in a two-body system.
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 considered a QED scattering ($AB\ensuremath{\rightarrow}AB$), in which BBB is initially entangled with a third particle (CCC) that does not participate directly in the scattering. The effect of the scattering over CCC's final state was evaluated and we noted coherence (off-diagonal) terms were created, which led to non-null values for $⟨{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}⟩$ and $⟨{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}⟩$ that are, in principle, measurable in a Stern-Gerlach apparatus. We chose a particular QED scattering (${e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{+}{\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$) and found that $⟨{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{x}⟩$ and $⟨{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}⟩$ are proportional to the total cross section (${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{\text{total}}$) of the ABABAB scattering, besides being maximal if BCBCBC's initial state is taken as a Bell basis. Furthermore, we calculated the initial and final mutual information IAC{I}_{AC}IAC​ and IBC{I}_{BC}IBC​, and noticed an increase (decrease) in IAC{I}_{AC}IAC​ (IBC{I}_{BC}IBC​), which indicates that, after ABABAB interact, the total amount of correlations (quantum+classical\mathrm{quantum}+\mathrm{classical}quantum+classical) is distributed among the 3 subsystems.
We study the entanglement entropy between the two outgoing particles in an elastic scattering process. It is formulated within an S-matrix formalism using the partial wave expansion of two-body states, which plays a significant role in our computation. As a result, we obtain a novel formula that expresses the entanglement entropy in a high energy scattering by the use of physical observables, namely the elastic and total cross sections and a physical bound on the impact parameter range, related to the elastic differential cross-section.
A particle initially in a pure state but interacting with some environment evolves into a discrete ensemble of pure states, the eigenstates of its reduced density operator, with ensemble probabilities given by the corresponding eigenvalues. In this work, we use numerics to present explicit results for the time-dependence of these eigenvalues and eigenstates for simple scattering experiments in one and two dimensions. This provides a time-resolved picture of the scattering process, showing in detail how an initial state described entirely in terms of continuous parameters evolves into a discrete set of possible outcomes, each with an associated probability and time-evolving wavefunction. We find that for scattering of Gaussian wavepackets in one dimension, the late time spectrum is dominated by two large eigenvalues nearly equal to the transmission and reflection probabilities associated with the central value of momentum. The corresponding eigenstates appear as single-peaked reflected or transmitted wavepackets. The remaining smaller eigenvalues, which increase to a maximum during scattering and then decrease to small values, correspond to reflected or transmitted wavepackets with multiple spatially separated parts. In this case and also for two-dimensional scattering, we find that successively smaller eigenvalues correspond to probability distributions with successively more peaks. These multi-peaked states correspond to outcomes of the scattering experiment where a particle initially in a single wavepacket ends up in a superposition of separated wavepackets after scattering.