An Alternative Method for Extracting the von Neumann Entropy from R´enyiEntropies
Eric D’Hoker(a), Xi Dong(b), and Chih-Hung Wu(b) (a)Mani L. Bhaumik Institute for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA (b)Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract: An alternative method is presented for extracting the von Neumann en- tropy − Tr(ρ ln ρ) from Tr(ρn) for integer n in a quantum system with density matrix ρ. Instead of relying on direct analytic continuation in n, the method uses a generating function − Tr{ρ ln[(1−zρ)/(1−z)]} of an auxiliary complex variable z. The generating function has a Taylor series that is absolutely convergent within |z| < 1, and may be analytically continued in z to z = −∞ where it gives the von Neumann entropy. As an example, we use the method to calculate analytically the CFT entanglement en- tropy of two intervals in the small cross ratio limit, reproducing a result that Calabrese et al. obtained by direct analytic continuation in n. Further examples are provided by numerical calculations of the entanglement entropy of two intervals for general cross ratios, and of one interval at finite temperature and finite interval length. arXiv:2008.10076v1 [hep-th] 23 Aug 2020 Contents
1 Introduction1
2 Analytical calculation for one interval4
3 Analytical calculation for two intervals6 3.1 Integral representation for G˜ 7 3.2 Analytic continuation to z → −∞ 8 3.3 Matching with previous results9
4 Setup of the numerical method 11
5 Numerical studies of two intervals 12 5.1 Two intervals at small cross ratio 14 5.2 Two intervals in the decompactification limit 15 5.3 Two intervals at finite cross ratio and compactification radius 17
6 Numerical studies of one interval at finite temperature and length 18
7 Power-law convergence of the generating function 20
8 Discussion 22
1 Introduction
The von Neumann entropy provides a quantitative measure of entanglement in a quan- tum system. In the special case of a thermal ensemble specified by a Hamiltonian, the von Neumann entropy reduces to the standard statistical mechanics entropy. In quantum field theory, the thermal entropy may be obtained directly from the partition function computed by standard functional integral methods, whereas the methods for calculating the entanglement entropy of a general subsystem are much less systematic, even in free field theories. Quantum field theory does provide, however, a reasonably systematic method for evaluating the R´enyi entropy [1] 1 S (ρ) = ln Tr(ρν) (1.1) ν 1 − ν
– 1 – when ν is an integer n greater than 1, by replicating the functional integral represen- tation for ρ, the density matrix, n times. The von Neumann entropy
S(ρ) = − Tr(ρ ln ρ) (1.2) is then obtained by taking the ν → 1 limit of the R´enyi entropy:
S(ρ) = lim Sν(ρ). (1.3) ν→1
Before taking such a limit, note that even though the R´enyi entropy Sν is well-defined for both integer and non-integer ν, it is directly computed by replicating the functional integrals only when ν is an integer n > 1. Therefore, one needs to determine the full function Sν from the set of its integer values {Sn, n = 2, 3, ···}, via some kind of analytic continuation. In practice, one achieves this analytic continuation by finding a locally holomorphic function Sν of ν ∈ C that takes the values Sn = Sn(ρ) for all integers n > 1 and has suitable asymptotic behaviors as ν → ∞ as required by Carlson’s 1 theorem . If such a function Sν is found, Carlson’s theorem guarantees its uniqueness and thus we obtain Sν(ρ) = Sν. This replica method has been applied extensively to the calculation of the en- tanglement entropy in many quantum systems, including quantum field theories and conformal field theories (CFTs). For example, the entanglement entropy of a single interval of length L in the vacuum state of a two-dimensional CFT on an infinite line is given by the universal formula c L S(ρ) = ln , (1.4) 3 ε where c is the central charge and ε is a UV cutoff with dimension of length. In this paper, we present an alternative method for extracting the von Neumann entropy from the R´enyi entropies Sn(ρ) for integer n > 1. Our method does not rely on a direct analytic continuation in the variable n. Instead, the starting point is that once we know the traces of powers of the density matrix
n Rn(ρ) ≡ Tr(ρ ), (1.5) we are allowed to define a generating function of an auxiliary variable z for these Rn(ρ): ∞ 1 − zρ X zn G(z; ρ) ≡ − Tr ρ ln = Tr(ρn+1) − 1 . (1.6) 1 − z n n=1 1Carlson’s theorem states that a function f(ν) that is holomorphic in ν for Re(ν) ≥ 1, vanishes for positive integer ν, is bounded by |f(ν)| < C eλ|ν| for Re(ν) ≥ 1 with constant C, λ, and satisfies this bound with some λ < π on Re(ν) = 1, must vanish identically for all ν. See [2,3].
– 2 – For a density matrix ρ, the series is absolutely convergent in the unit disc |z| < 1. Choosing the branch cut of the logarithm to lie along the positive real axis, the function G(z; ρ) may be analytically continued from the unit disc to a holomorphic function in the cut plane C \ [1, ∞). The limit of this analytically continued function as z → −∞, which is well within the domain of holomorphicity, gives the von Neumann entropy:
S(ρ) = lim G(z; ρ), (1.7) z→−∞ as may be verified directly from the definition (1.6). The existence of the analytically continued function in z beyond the unit disc may be seen from (1.6) as well. It may also be verified by rewriting the generating function in terms of a M¨obiustransformed variable w: z G(z; ρ) = − Tr ρ ln 1 − w(1 − ρ) , w = . (1.8) z − 1 Its Taylor series in powers of w is
∞ X f˜(k) G(z; ρ) = wk (1.9) k k=1 where k X (−1)mk! f˜(k) = Tr[ρ(1 − ρ)k] = Tr(ρm+1). (1.10) m!(k − m)! m=0 n The first few terms of the series written in terms of Rn = Tr(ρ ) are 1 1 G(z; ρ) = (1 − R )w + (1 − 2R + R )w2 + (1 − 3R + 3R − R )w3 + ··· . (1.11) 2 2 2 3 3 2 3 4 For a density matrix ρ, the Taylor series is absolutely convergent in the unit disc |w| < 1. Transforming back to the z variable, this provides explicitly the analytic continued function in Re(z) ≤ 1/2. An advantage of working with the w variable is that we may obtain the von Neumann entropy directly by taking the w → 1 limit:
S(ρ) = lim G(z; ρ). (1.12) w→1 This may be written explicitly as a series:
∞ X f˜(k) 1 1 S(ρ) = = (1 − R ) + (1 − 2R + R ) + (1 − 3R + 3R − R ) + ··· (1.13) k 2 2 2 3 3 2 3 4 k=1 which provides an exact expression for evaluating the von Neumann entropy from Rn = Tr(ρn) with integer n > 1.
– 3 – In addition to extracting the von Neumann entropy, it is worth noting that Rν(ρ) = Tr(ρν) for arbitrary powers ν ∈ R+ may be evaluated by using similar generating functions as well, whenever the corresponding trace is convergent. Our method is related to the resolvent method used in e.g. [4]. One advantage of our method is that it can be applied directly to numerical calculations as we will demonstrate using Eq. (1.13) shortly. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In section2 we follow the procedure described above to recover the von Neumann entropy in the simple case of a single interval, whose solution by analytic continuation in n is immediate. In section3, we use our method to evaluate the von Neumann entropy of two intervals in the small n cross ratio limit in 2d CFT starting from Rn(ρ) = Tr(ρ ), and reproduce the results of [5] for this system in the same limit. In section4, we set up the basis for numerical calculations of the von Neumann entropy using the generating function. In section5, we present numerical results for the entanglement entropy in the two-interval example but now for finite values of the cross ratio. In section6, we present numerical results for the entanglement entropy of one interval in a two-dimensional CFT at finite temperature. In section7, we analyze in detail the rate of convergence of the Taylor series for the generating function in the M¨obiustransformed variable w at w = 1. We conclude and comment on a few open questions in section8.
2 Analytical calculation for one interval
We now apply the method to our first example: to extract the von Neumann entropy of one interval of length L in the vacuum state of a two-dimensional CFT on an infinite line, from its R´enyi entropies c 1 L S (ρ) = 1 + ln (2.1) n 6 n for integer n > 1. Here c is the central charge and ε is a UV cutoff. This is an example where direct analytic continuation in n is obvious, but it is nonetheless interesting to see how our method works here. This example also serves as a starting point for more complicated examples such as the one to be analyzed in the following section. To apply our method, we start by rewriting Eq. (2.1) as
c 1 6 ( n −n) n L 1 −n y R (ρ) = Tr(ρ ) = = e( n ) , (2.2) n where for convenience we have defined c L y = ln . (2.3) 6
– 4 – We use these Rn(ρ) values for integer n to form the generating function
∞ n X z h 1 −n−1 y i G(z; ρ) = e( n+1 ) − 1 . (2.4) n n=1
Combining e−ny with zn and expanding the remaining exponential in powers of y, we obtain
∞ ∞ X (ze−y)n X yj 1 G(z; ρ) = ln(1 − z) + e−y (2.5) n j! (n + 1)j n=1 j=0 ∞ X yj = ln(1 − z) + e−y F (ze−y), (2.6) j! j j=0 where we have defined the sum
∞ X zn F (z) ≡ (2.7) j n(n + 1)j n=1 for nonnegative integer j. We will eventually take z → −∞, so we need to find the behavior of the sum (2.7) in this limit. To do this, we use the partial fraction decomposition k 1 1 X 1 = − (2.8) n(n + 1)k n (n + 1)s s=1 and perform the sum (2.7) in terms of the polylogarithm function defined by
∞ X zn Li (z) = , (2.9) s ns n=1 obtaining j 1 X F (z) = j + Li (z) − Li (z). (2.10) j 1 z s s=1
To find the behavior of Fj(z) as z → −∞, we need the behavior of the polyloga- rithm as z → −∞, which is given by the Sommerfeld expansion
∞ 1−2m X (1 − 2 ) ζ(2m) s−2m Li (z) = −2 [ln(−z)] + O(z−1). (2.11) s Γ(s − 2m + 1) m=0 From this we find −1 Fj(z) = j − ln(−z) + O(z ) (2.12)
– 5 – as z → −∞. Substituting this into Eq. (2.6), we obtain as z → −∞
∞ X yj G(z; ρ) = ln(1 − z) + e−y j − ln(−ze−y) + O(z−1) (2.13) j! j=0 = ln(−z) + y − ln(−ze−y) + O(z−1) (2.14) = 2y + O(z−1). (2.15)
Taking the z → −∞ limit, we obtain the von Neumann entropy c L S(ρ) = lim G(z; ρ) = 2y = ln (2.16) z→−∞ 3 as expected.
3 Analytical calculation for two intervals
We now apply our method to calculate the entanglement entropy of two disjoint inter- vals in the vacuum state of a two-dimensional CFT on an infinite line. Let us call the two-interval subsystem A ∪ B, where A = [x1, x2] and B = [x3, x4]. The cross ratio is then defined as x x x = 12 34 , (3.1) x13x24 n with xij = xi − xj. We will focus on the small x limit, where Rn(ρ) = Tr(ρ ) was calculated in [5,6] and given by
" n−1 # c 1 −n α x12x34 6 ( n ) x n X 1 Tr(ρn) = 1 + N + ··· , (3.2) 2 4n2 2 π` 2α `=1 sin n where is a UV cutoff, α/2 is the lowest dimension in the operator spectrum of the CFT, N is the multiplicity of the lowest-dimensional operators, and ··· denotes higher order corrections. For examples, we have N = 2 for a free boson and N = 1 for the Ising model. For notational simplicity, let us define c x x y = ln 12 34 (3.3) 6 2 and write the sum in Eq. (3.2) in a different but equivalent way, leading to
" n−1 # α n 1 −n y x X ` Tr(ρ ) = e( n ) 1 + N + ··· . (3.4) 4n2 π` 2α `=1 sin n
– 6 – At the leading order O(x0), the form of Tr(ρn) is similar to that of a single interval studied in section2, and therefore the von Neumann entropy may be extracted by the same steps, resulting in c x x S = 2y + O(xα) = ln 12 34 + O(xα). (3.5) AB 3 2 We now work at the subleading order O(xα). As our method deals with Tr(ρn) in a completely linear way, we may focus on the O(xα) term in Eq. (3.4). To extract the von Neumann entropy at this order, we define the generating function at order xα
∞ n n X z 1 −n−1 y 1 X ` G˜(z; ρ) = e( n+1 ) , (3.6) n (n + 1)2α π` 2α n=1 `=1 sin n+1