Eigenstate Entanglement: Crossover from the Ground State to Volume Laws

Journal Article · 20 July 2021 · Physical Review Letters

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.127.040603 · OSTI ID:1853292

Miao, Qiang ^[1]; Barthel, Thomas ^[2]

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1. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States); OSTI
2. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)

For the typical quantum many-body systems that obey the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), we argue that the entanglement entropy of (almost) all energy eigenstates is described by a single crossover function. The ETH implies that the crossover functions can be deduced from subsystem entropies of thermal ensembles and have universal properties. These functions capture the full crossover from the ground-state entanglement regime at low energies and small subsystem size (area or log-area law) to the extensive volume-law regime at high energies or large subsystem size. For critical one-dimensional systems, a universal scaling function follows from conformal field theory and can be adapted for nonlinear dispersions. We use it to also deduce the crossover scaling function for Fermi liquids in d > 1 dimensions. Here, the analytical results are complemented by numerics for large noninteracting systems of fermions in d ≤ 3 dimensions and have also been confirmed for bosonic systems and nonintegrable spin chains.

• Research Organization: Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States); Duke University, Durham, NC (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0019449
• OSTI ID: 1853292
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 127; ISSN 0031-9007
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English