Entanglement entropy of two disjoint intervals and the recursion formula for conformal blocks

We reconsider the computation of the entanglement entropy of two disjoint intervals in a (1+1) dimensional conformal field theory by conformal block expansion of the 4-point correlation function of twist fields. We show that accurate results may be obtained by taking into account several terms in the operator product expansion of twist fields and by iterating the Zamolodchikov recursion formula for each conformal block. We perform a detailed analysis for the Ising conformal field theory and for the free compactified boson. Each term in the conformal block expansion can be easily analytically continued and so this approach also provides a good approximation for the von Neumann entropy

Phase ordering and symmetries of the Potts model

We have studied the ordering of the q-colour Potts model in two dimensions on a square lattice. On the basis of our observations we propose that if q is large enough, the system is not able to break global and local null magnetization symmetries at zero temperature: when q 4 it relaxes towards a non-equilibrium phase with energy larger than the ground state energy, in agreement with the previous findings of De Oliveira et al

Ordering dynamics in the presence of multiple phases

The dynamics of the 2D Potts ferromagnet, when quenched below the transition temperature, is investigated in the case of a discontinuous phase transition. This is useful for understanding the non-equilibrium dynamics of systems with many competing equivalent low-temperature phases, which appears not to have been explored much. After briefly reviewing some recent findings, we focus on the numerical study of quenches just below the transition temperature on square lattices. We show that, up to a certain time, metastable states can be observed, for which energy stays constant above the equilibrium energy and the self-correlation function displays a fast decay

Chaos and Correlated Avalanches in Excitatory Neural Networks with Synaptic Plasticity

A collective chaotic phase with power law scaling of activity events is observed in a disordered mean field network of purely excitatory leaky integrate-and-fire neurons with short-term synaptic plasticity. The dynamical phase diagram exhibits two transitions from quasisynchronous and asynchronous regimes to the nontrivial, collective, bursty regime with avalanches. In the homogeneous case without disorder, the system synchronizes and the bursty behavior is reflected into a period doubling transition to chaos for a two dimensional discrete map. Numerical simulations show that the bursty chaotic phase with avalanches exhibits a spontaneous emergence of persistent time correlations and enhanced Kolmogorov complexity. Our analysis reveals a mechanism for the generation of irregular avalanches that emerges from the combination of disorder and deterministic underlying chaotic dynamics

More on the rainbow chain: entanglement, space-time geometry and thermal states

The rainbow chain is an inhomogenous exactly solvable local spin model that, in its ground state, displays a half-chain entanglement entropy growing linearly with the system size. Although many exact results about the rainbow chain are known, the structure of the underlying quantum field theory has not yet been unraveled. Here we show that the universal scaling features of this model are captured by a massless Dirac fermion in a curved space-time with constant negative curvature R= 12h2 (h is the amplitude of the inhomogeneity). This identification allows us to use recently developed techniques to study inhomogeneous conformal systems and to analytically characterise the entanglement entropies of more general bipartitions. These results are carefully tested against exact numerical calculations. Finally, we study the entanglement entropies of the rainbow chain in thermal states, and find that there is a non-trivial interplay between the rainbow effective temperature TR and the physical temperature T. ArXI

Entanglement entropy of the long-range Dyson hierarchical model

We study the ground state entanglement entropy of the quantum Dyson hierarchical spin chain in which the interaction decays algebraically with the distance as r?1?We exploit the real-space renormalisation group solution which gives the ground-state wave function in the form of a tree tensor network and provides a manageable recursive expression for the reduced density matrix of the renormalised ground state. Surprisingly, we find that at criticality the entanglement entropy obeys an area law, as opposite to the logarithmic scaling of short-range critical systems and of other non-hierarchical long-range models. We provide also some analytical results in the limit of large and small that are tested against the numerical solution of the recursive equations

Unusual area-law violation in random inhomogeneous systems

The discovery of novel entanglement patterns in quantum many-body systems is a prominent research direction in contemporary physics. Here we provide the example of a spin chain with random and inhomogeneous couplings that in the ground state exhibits a very unusual area-law violation. In the clean limit, i.e. without disorder, the model is the rainbow chain and has volume law entanglement. We show that, in the presence of disorder, the entanglement entropy exhibits a power-law growth with the subsystem size, with an exponent 1/2. By employing the strong disorder renormalization group (SDRG) framework, we show that this exponent is related to the survival probability of certain random walks. The ground state of the model exhibits extended regions of short-range singlets (that we term 'bubble' regions) as well as rare long range singlet ('rainbow' regions). Crucially, while the probability of extended rainbow regions decays exponentially with their size, that of the bubble regions is power law. We provide strong numerical evidence for the correctness of SDRG results by exploiting the free-fermion solution of the model. Finally, we investigate the role of interactions by considering the random inhomogeneous XXZ spin chain. Within the SDRG framework and in the strong inhomogeneous limit, we show that the above area-law violation takes place only at the free-fermion point of phase diagram. This point divides two extended regions, which exhibit volume-law and area-law entanglement, respectively