Entanglement contour
Jun 5, 201416 pages
Published in:
- J.Stat.Mech. 2014 (2014) 10, P10011
- Published: Oct 9, 2014
e-Print:
- 1406.1471 [cond-mat.str-el]
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Abstract: (IOP)
In the context of characterizing the structure of quantum entanglement in many-body systems, we introduce the entanglement contour, a tool to identify which real-space degrees of freedom contribute, and how much, to the entanglement of a region A with the rest of the system B. The entanglement contour provides a complementary, more refined approach to characterizing entanglement than just considering the entanglement entropy between A and B, with several concrete advantages. We illustrate this in the context of ground states and quantum quenches in fermionic quadratic systems. For instance, in a quantum critical system in D = 1 spatial dimensions, the entanglement contour allows us to determine the central charge of the underlying conformal field theory from just a single partition of the system into regions A and B (using the entanglement entropy for the same task requires considering several partitions). In D ⩾ 2 dimensions, the entanglement contour can distinguish between gapped and gapless phases that obey the same boundary law for entanglement entropy. During a local or global quantum quench, the time-dependent contour provides a detailed account of the dynamics of entanglement, including propagating entanglement waves, which offers a microscopic explanation of the behavior of the entanglement entropy as a function of time.Note:
- 16 pages, 15 figures
References(78)
Figures(21)