Surface and bulk entanglement in free-fermion chains

We consider free-fermion chains where full and empty parts are connected by a transition region with narrow surfaces. This can be caused by a linear potential or by time evolution from a step-like initial state. Entanglement spectra, entanglement entropies and fluctuations are determined for subsystems either in the surface region or extending into the bulk. In all cases there is logarithmic behaviour in the subsystem size, but the prefactors in the surface differ from those in the bulk by 3/2. A previous fluctuation result is corrected and a general scaling formula is inferred from the data.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, minor changes, references adde

Entanglement negativity in the harmonic chain out of equilibrium

We study the entanglement in a chain of harmonic oscillators driven out of equilibrium by preparing the two sides of the system at different temperatures, and subsequently joining them together. The steady state is constructed explicitly and the logarithmic negativity is calculated between two adjacent segments of the chain. We find that, for low temperatures, the steady-state entanglement is a sum of contributions pertaining to left- and right-moving excitations emitted from the two reservoirs. In turn, the steady-state entanglement is a simple average of the Gibbs-state values and thus its scaling can be obtained from conformal field theory. A similar averaging behaviour is observed during the entire time evolution. As a particular case, we also discuss a local quench where both sides of the chain are initialized in their respective ground states.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, small changes, references added, published versio

Real-time dynamics in a strongly interacting bosonic hopping model: Global quenches and mapping to the XX chain

We study the time evolution of an integrable many-particle system, described by the $q$-boson Hamiltonian in the limit of strong interactions $q\to\infty$. It is shown that, for a particular class of pure initial states, the analytical calculation of certain observables simplifies considerably. Namely, we provide exact formulas for the calculation of the Loschmidt-echo and the emptiness formation probability, where the computational time scales polynomially with the particle number. Moreover, we construct a non-local mapping of the $q$-boson model to the XX spin chain, and show how this can be utilized to obtain the time evolution of various local bosonic observables for translationally invariant initial states. The results obtained via the bosonic and fermionic picture show perfect agreement. In the infinite volume and large time limits, we rigorously verify the prediction of the Generalized Gibbs Ensemble for homogeneous initial Fock states.Comment: 26 pages, 3 figures, v2: minor mistakes in Appendix 2 corrected, v3: minor modification

Area law violation for the mutual information in a nonequilibrium steady state

We study the nonequilibrium steady state of an infinite chain of free fermions, resulting from an initial state where the two sides of the system are prepared at different temperatures. The mutual information is calculated between two adjacent segments of the chain and is found to scale logarithmically in the subsystem size. This provides the first example of the violation of the area law in a quantum many-body system outside a zero temperature regime. The prefactor of the logarithm is obtained analytically and, furthermore, the same prefactor is shown to govern the logarithmic increase of mutual information in time, before the system relaxes locally to the steady state.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, final version, references adde

On the partial transpose of fermionic Gaussian states

We consider Gaussian states of fermionic systems and study the action of the partial transposition on the density matrix. It is shown that, with a suitable choice of basis, these states are transformed into a linear combination of two Gaussian operators that are uniquely defined in terms of the covariance matrix of the original state. In case of a reflection symmetric geometry, this result can be used to efficiently calculate a lower bound for a well-known entanglement measure, the logarithmic negativity. Furthermore, exact expressions can be derived for traces involving integer powers of the partial transpose. The method can also be applied to the quantum Ising chain and the results show perfect agreement with the predictions of conformal field theory.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, published version, typos corrected, references adde

Free-fermion entanglement and spheroidal functions

We consider the entanglement properties of free fermions in one dimension and review an approach which relates the problem to the solution of a certain differential equation. The single-particle eigenfunctions of the entanglement Hamiltonian are then seen to be spheroidal functions or generalizations of them. The analytical results for the eigenvalue spectrum agree with those obtained by other methods. In the continuum case, there are close connections to random matrix theory.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, figures update

Fano resonances and entanglement entropy

We study the entanglement in the ground state of a chain of free spinless fermions with a single side-coupled impurity. We find a logarithmic scaling for the entanglement entropy of a segment neighboring the impurity. The prefactor of the logarithm varies continuously and contains an impurity contribution described by a one-parameter function, while the contribution of the unmodified boundary enters additively. The coefficient is found explicitly by pointing out similarities with other models involving interface defects. The proposed formula gives excellent agreement with our numerical data. If the segment has an open boundary, one finds a rapidly oscillating subleading term in the entropy that persists in the limit of large block sizes. The particle number fluctuation inside the subsystem is also reported. It is analogous with the expression for the entropy scaling, however with a simpler functional form for the coefficient.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, minor change