68 research outputs found
On entanglement evolution across defects in critical chains
We consider a local quench where two free-fermion half-chains are coupled via
a defect. We show that the logarithmic increase of the entanglement entropy is
governed by the same effective central charge which appears in the ground-state
properties and which is known exactly. For unequal initial filling of the
half-chains, we determine the linear increase of the entanglement entropy.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, minor changes, reference adde
Fluctuations in subsystems of the zero temperature XX chain: Emergence of an effective temperature
The zero-temperature XX chain is studied with emphasis on the properties of a
block of spins inside the chain. We investigate the quantum fluctuations
resulting from the entanglement of the block with the rest of the chain using
analytical as well as numerical (density matrix renormalization group) methods.
It is found that the rest of the chain acts as a thermal environment and an
effective temperature can be introduced to describe the fluctuations. We show
that the effective temperature description is robust in the sense that several
independent definitions (through fluctuation dissipation theorem, comparing
with a finite temperature system) yield the same functional form in the limit
of large block size (). The effective temperature can also be shown
to satisfy the basic requirements on how it changes when two bodies of equal or
unequal temperatures are brought into contact.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure
Evolution of entanglement after a local quench
We study free electrons on an infinite half-filled chain, starting in the
ground state with a bond defect. We find a logarithmic increase of the
entanglement entropy after the defect is removed, followed by a slow relaxation
towards the value of the homogeneous chain. The coefficients depend
continuously on the defect strength.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, final versio
On the continuum limit of the entanglement Hamiltonian
We consider the entanglement Hamiltonian for an interval in a chain of free fermions in its ground state and show that the lattice expression goes over into the conformal one if one includes the hopping to distant neighbours in the continuum limit. For an infinite chain, this can be done analytically for arbitrary fillings and is shown to be the consequence of the particular structure of the entanglement Hamiltonian, while for finite rings or temperatures the result is based on numerical calculations
Entanglement evolution after connecting finite to infinite quantum chains
We study zero-temperature XX chains and transverse Ising chains and join an
initially separate finite piece on one or on both sides to an infinite
remainder. In both critical and non-critical systems we find a typical increase
of the entanglement entropy after the quench, followed by a slow decay towards
the value of the homogeneous chain. In the critical case, the predictions of
conformal field theory are verified for the first phase of the evolution, while
at late times a step structure can be observed.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figure
Exact results for the entanglement across defects in critical chains
We consider fermionic and bosonic quantum chains where a defect separates two
subsystems and compare the corresponding entanglement spectra. With these, we
calculate their R\'enyi entanglement entropies and obtain analytical formulae
for the continuously varying coefficient of the leading logarithmic term. For
the bosonic case we also present numerical results.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, some remarks adde
On the relation between entanglement and subsystem Hamiltonians
We show that a proportionality between the entanglement Hamiltonian and the
Hamiltonian of a subsystem exists near the limit of maximal entanglement under
certain conditions. Away from that limit, solvable models show that the
coupling range differs in both quantities and allow to investigate the effect.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures version2: minor changes, typos correcte
Exact relationship between the entanglement entropies of XY and quantum Ising chains
We consider two prototypical quantum models, the spin-1/2 XY chain and the
quantum Ising chain and study their entanglement entropy, S(l,L), of blocks of
l spins in homogeneous or inhomogeneous systems of length L. By using two
different approaches, free-fermion techniques and perturbational expansion, an
exact relationship between the entropies is revealed. Using this relation we
translate known results between the two models and obtain, among others, the
additive constant of the entropy of the critical homogeneous quantum Ising
chain and the effective central charge of the random XY chain.Comment: 6 page
Entanglement spectra of critical and near-critical systems in one dimension
The entanglement spectrum of a pure state of a bipartite system is the full
set of eigenvalues of the reduced density matrix obtained from tracing out one
part. Such spectra are known in several cases to contain important information
beyond that in the entanglement entropy. This paper studies the entanglement
spectrum for a variety of critical and near-critical quantum lattice models in
one dimension, chiefly by the iTEBD numerical method, which enables both
integrable and non-integrable models to be studied. We find that the
distribution of eigenvalues in the entanglement spectra agrees with an
approximate result derived by Calabrese and Lefevre to an accuracy of a few
percent for all models studied. This result applies whether the correlation
length is intrinsic or generated by the finite matrix size accessible in iTEBD.
For the transverse Ising model, the known exact results for the entanglement
spectrum are used to confirm the validity of the iTEBD approach. For more
general models, no exact result is available but the iTEBD results directly
test the hypothesis that all moments of the reduced density matrix are
determined by a single parameter.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Reduced density matrices and entanglement entropy in free lattice models
We review the properties of reduced density matrices for free fermionic or
bosonic many-particle systems in their ground state. Their basic feature is
that they have a thermal form and thus lead to a quasi-thermodynamic problem
with a certain free-particle Hamiltonian. We discuss the derivation of this
result, the character of the Hamiltonian and its eigenstates, the
single-particle spectra and the full spectra, the resulting entanglement and in
particular the entanglement entropy. This is done for various one- and
two-dimensional situations, including also the evolution after global or local
quenches.Comment: 33 pages, 18 figures, minor changes, references added. Review article
for the special issue "Entanglement entropy in extended systems" in J. Phys.
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