Entanglement entropy of highly degenerate states and fractal dimensions

We consider the bipartite entanglement entropy of ground states of extended quantum systems with a large degeneracy. Often, as when there is a spontaneously broken global Lie group symmetry, basis elements of the lowest-energy space form a natural geometrical structure. For instance, the spins of a spin-1/2 representation, pointing in various directions, form a sphere. We show that for subsystems with a large number m of local degrees of freedom, the entanglement entropy diverges as (d/2) log m, where d is the fractal dimension of the subset of basis elements with nonzero coefficients. We interpret this result by seeing d as the (not necessarily integer) number of zero-energy Goldstone bosons describing the ground state. We suggest that this result holds quite generally for largely degenerate ground states, with potential applications to spin glasses and quenched disorder.Comment: 5 pages. v2: Small changes, published versio

Rank one discrete valuations of power series fields

In this paper we study the rank one discrete valuations of the field $k((X_1,..., X_n))$ whose center in k\lcor\X\rcor is the maximal ideal. In sections 2 to 6 we give a construction of a system of parametric equations describing such valuations. This amounts to finding a parameter and a field of coefficients. We devote section 2 to finding an element of value 1, that is, a parameter. The field of coefficients is the residue field of the valuation, and it is given in section 5. The constructions given in these sections are not effective in the general case, because we need either to use the Zorn's lemma or to know explicitly a section $\sigma$ of the natural homomorphism R_v\to\d between the ring and the residue field of the valuation $v$. However, as a consequence of this construction, in section 7, we prove that k((\X)) can be embedded into a field L((\Y)), where $L$ is an algebraic extension of $k$ and the {\em ``extended valuation'' is as close as possible to the usual order function}

Key polynomials for simple extensions of valued fields

Let $\iota:K\hookrightarrow L\cong K(x)$ be a simple transcendental extension of valued fields, where $K$ is equipped with a valuation $\nu$ of rank 1. That is, we assume given a rank 1 valuation $\nu$ of $K$ and its extension $\nu'$ to $L$. Let $(R_\nu,M_\nu,k_\nu)$ denote the valuation ring of $\nu$. The purpose of this paper is to present a refined version of MacLane's theory of key polynomials, similar to those considered by M. Vaqui\'e, and reminiscent of related objects studied by Abhyankar and Moh (approximate roots) and T.C. Kuo. Namely, we associate to $\iota$ a countable well ordered set $$\mathbf{Q}=\{Q_i\}_{i\in\Lambda}\subset K[x];$$ the $Q_i$ are called {\bf key polynomials}. Key polynomials $Q_i$ which have no immediate predecessor are called {\bf limit key polynomials}. Let $\beta_i=\nu'(Q_i)$. We give an explicit description of the limit key polynomials (which may be viewed as a generalization of the Artin--Schreier polynomials). We also give an upper bound on the order type of the set of key polynomials. Namely, we show that if $\operatorname{char}\ k_\nu=0$ then the set of key polynomials has order type at most $\omega$, while in the case $\operatorname{char}\ k_\nu=p>0$ this order type is bounded above by $\omega\times\omega$, where $\omega$ stands for the first infinite ordinal.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:math/060519