We introduce a new measure of quantum entanglement, the orbital concurrence, designed to quantify orbital correlations in interacting multi-orbital electron systems. This quantity extends the concept of concurrence, originally developed for charge and spin degrees of freedom, to the orbital sector, providing a compact and physically transparent characterization of orbital entanglement. To test the validity and usefulness of this measure, we apply it to the single-site Anderson model, a paradigmatic and exactly solvable system that captures the essential interplay between localized correlated electrons and itinerant ones. In this framework, we derive exact, fully analytical expressions for the orbital concurrence and investigate its behavior in different regimes of interaction strength and hybridization. Our results demonstrate the diagnostic power of the proposed measure and open the way to its use in more complex multi-orbital impurities and lattice models.
We introduce a new measure of quantum entanglement, the orbital concurrence, designed to quantify orbital correlations in interacting multi-orbital electron systems. This quantity extends the concept of concurrence, originally developed for charge and spin degrees of freedom, to the orbital sector, providing a compact and physically transparent characterization of orbital entanglement. To test the validity and usefulness of this measure, we apply it to the single-site Anderson model, a paradigmatic and exactly solvable system that captures the essential interplay between localized correlated electrons and itinerant ones. In this framework, we derive exact, fully analytical expressions for the orbital concurrence and investigate its behavior in different regimes of interaction strength and hybridization. Our results demonstrate the diagnostic power of the proposed measure and open the way to its use in more complex multi-orbital impurities and lattice models.
Abstract We introduce a framework for characterizing many-body ground states based on the interplay of different types of concurrences. Rather than relying on a single entanglement measure, we show that the relative magnitude and scaling of spin and orbital concurrences provide a physically transparent classification of the ground state. Using the single-site Anderson model as a minimal and exactly constrained testbed, we show that spin-singlet formation and orbital superposition contribute in qualitatively different ways, leading to distinct ground-state spectral weights characterized by dominant spin or orbital degrees of freedom. Our results establish concurrences as diagnostic tools that provide a transparent characterization of the ground-state structure within this minimal setting, and suggest a possible strategy for identifying the nature of quantum superposition in more complex many-body systems.
Entanglement is one of the most fascinating concepts of modern physics. In striking contrast to its abstract, mathematical foundation, its practical side is, however, remarkably underdeveloped. Even for systems of just two orbitals or sites no faithful entanglement measure is known yet. By exploiting the spin symmetries of realistic many-electron systems, we succeed in deriving a closed formula for the relative entropy of entanglement between electron orbitals. Its broad applicability in the quantum sciences is demonstrated: (i) in light of the second quantum revolution, it quantifies the true physical entanglement by incorporating the crucial fermionic superselection rule (ii) an analytic description of the long-distance entanglement in free electron chains is found, refining Kohn's locality principle (iii) the bond-order wave phase in the extended Hubbard model can be confirmed, and (iv) the quantum complexity of common molecular bonding structures could be marginalized through orbital transformations, thus rationalizing zero-seniority wave function ansatzes.
We are able to detect clear signatures of dephasing---a distinct trait of many-body localization (MBL)---via the dynamics of two-site entanglement, quantified through the concurrence. Using the protocol implemented by M. Schreiber et al. [Science 349, 842 (2015)], we show that in the MBL phase the average two-site entanglement decays in time as a power law, while in the Anderson localized phase it tends to a plateau. The power-law exponent is not universal and displays a clear dependence on the interaction strength. This behavior is also qualitatively different from the ergodic phase, where the two-site entanglement decays exponentially. All the results are obtained by means of time-dependent density matrix renormalization-group simulations and further corroborated by analytical calculations on an effective model. Two-site entanglement has been measured in cold atoms: our analysis paves the way for the first direct experimental test of many-body dephasing in the MBL phase.
By mapping the Fock space of many local fermionic modes isomorphically onto a many-qubit space and using the measure of concurrence, this paper studies numerically the mode entanglement of two spinless electrons with on-site interaction U moving in the one-dimensional Harper model. Generally speaking, for electrons in extended regimes (potential parameter λ < 2), the spectrum-averaged concurrence N〈C〉 first decreases slowly as λ increases until its local minimum, then increases with λ until its peak at λ = 2, while for electrons in localized regimes (λ > 2), N〈C〉 decreases drastically as λ increases. The functions of N 〈C〉 versus λ are different for electrons in extended and localized regimes. The maximum of N〈C〉 occurs at the point λ = 2, which is the critical value in the one-dimensional single-particle Harper model. From these studies it can distinguish extended, localized and critical regimes for the two-particle system. It is also found for the same λ that the interaction U always induce the decreases of concurrence, i.e., the concurrence can reflect the localization effect due to the interaction. All these provide us a new quantity to understand the localization properties of eigenstates of two interacting particles.
An essential role for the description of correlated quantum many-particle systems is played by impurity problems. These consist of a small number of localized orbitals, where the electrons are subject to a Coulomb-interaction, coupled to noninteracting bath degrees of freedom. Impurity models are used for the description of magnetic impurities in metals, of quantum points in nanostructures, and in the context of the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT). For their solution a large number of numerical methods exists. We mention here quantum Monte Carlo methods, the numerical renormalization group, or the exact diagonalization method. In this thesis we introduce a new approach to impurity problems, which is based on the functional renormalization group (fRG). In contrast to the methods mentioned above this approach is approximative, but it can be applied with comparatively lower numerical effort. The aim of this thesis is to examine the advantages and limits of this method. An important role in this connection is played by the single impurity Anderson model (SIAM), which is already understood very well with other methods and is seen as a prototype for models with strong local correlations. The spin fluctuations of this model are governed by the so-called Kondo energy scale and a central question of this thesis is whether this scale can be reproduced with our approach. We begin with a short introduction to the Green's function formalism for correlated quantum many particle systems. Then the fRG flow equations for the one-particle irreducible vertex functions are deduced, and several approximation schemes are discussed. In chapter 4 we introduce the fRG scheme used in this thesis. At first the SIAM is mapped to a semi-infinite chain, in which the interacting orbital is given by the first site of this chain. The system is then subdivided into two parts. The first part, which is called 'core', consists of the interacting orbital and the first L bath sites. The remaining bath sites form the second part. At the beginning both parts are decoupled from each other such that the core can be solved exactly. Starting with this exact solution the coupling between the core and the remaining bath sites is switched on slowly in a renormalization group flow. This way it is possible to calculate the one-particle and two-particle correlation functions on the correlated site. We call this flow scheme 'hybridization flow'. The flow equations are formulated in an effective theory on the first bath site outside the core, which turns out to be advantageous compared to other implementations of the hybridization flow. In chapter 5 this hybridization flow method is applied to the SIAM with semi-elliptic bath density of states. We discuss the differences which arise for different core-sizes (L = 0,1,2,3) and for different truncations of the fRG flow equations. In the cases L=0 and L=2 the local Fermi liquid properties of the SIAM and the associated Kondo scale can not be reproduced in both approximation schemes. For the core sizes L=1 and L=3 the ground state of the core is already a spin singlet state in the beginning of the flow and the Fermi liquid properties are reproduced. The Kondo energy scale, which determines the width of the central quasi-particle peak and the size of the local spin-susceptibility, is however not accurately resolved. This is partly due to the finite temperature used in our implementation such that for larger interaction strength the temperature is above the Kondo energy scale. The application of the hybridization flow method to quantum impurity problems in the context of the DMFT is discussed in chapter 6. In this approach lattice models with a local interaction, like the Hubbard model, are mapped to an effective impurity problem for a single lattice site embedded in a dynamical mean field representing the influence of the other electrons. This scheme is exact in infinitely many dimensions and a nonperturbative approximation method for finite-dimensional systems. In particular the Mott metal-insulator transition in the Hubbard model is successfully described by this method. One class of quantities, which is easily accessible from the hybridization flow scheme, is given by the local two-particle correlation functions. These play an essential role in non-local extensions of the DMFT. Therefore we mainly focus on these quantities. At first we apply our flow scheme to the Hubbard model on the Bethe lattice in infinite dimensions and calculate the local one-particle irreducible vertex functions in the insulating and the metallic phase in good agreement with previous calculations, which use the exact diagonalization method as impurity solver. After this we extend our flow scheme to a cluster DMFT method, which includes short-range antiferromagnetic correlations and calculate again the local and non-local vertex functions for the two-dimensional Hubbard model. We compare these to the results of the single-site DMFT.
The local moment approach is extended to the orbitally degenerate (SU(2N)) Anderson impurity model (AIM). Single-particle dynamics are obtained over the full range of energy scales, focusing on particle-hole symmetry in the strongly-correlated regime where the onsite Coulomb interaction leads to many-body Kondo physics with entangled spin and orbital degrees of freedom. The approach captures many-body broadening of the Hubbard satellites and recovers the correct exponential vanishing of the Kondo scale for all N, and its universal scaling spectra are found to be in very good agreement with numerical renormalization group (NRG) results. In particular the high-frequency logarithmic decays of the scaling spectra, obtained here in closed form for arbitrary N, coincide essentially perfectly with available numerics from the NRG. A particular case of an anisotropic Coulomb interaction, in which the model represents a system of N 'capacitively coupled' SU(2) AIMs, is also discussed. Here the model is generally characterized by two low-energy scales, the crossover between which is seen directly in its dynamics.