Probing the Onset of Maximal Entanglement inside the Proton in Diffractive Deep Inelastic Scattering

Journal Article · 12 December 2023 · Physical Review Letters

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.131.241901 · OSTI ID:1983774

Hentschinski, Martin  ^[1]; Kharzeev, Dmitri E. ^[2]; Kutak, Krzysztof ^[3]; Tu, Zhoudunming  ^[4]

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1. Universidad de las Americas Puebla (Mexico)
2. Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States); Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
3. Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS), Krakow (Poland)
4. Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)

It has been proposed that at small Bjorken x, or equivalently at high energy, hadrons represent maximally entangled states of quarks and gluons. This conjecture is in accord with experimental data from the electron-proton collider HERA at the smallest accessible x. In this Letter, we propose to study the onset of the maximal entanglement inside the proton using diffractive deep inelastic scattering. It is shown that the data collected by the H1 Collaboration at HERA allow one to probe the transition to the maximal entanglement regime. By relating the entanglement entropy to the entropy of final-state hadrons, we find a good agreement with the H1 data using both the exact entropy formula as well as its asymptotic expansion which indicates the presence of a nearly maximally entangled state. Finally, future opportunities at the Electron Ion Collider are discussed.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0012704
• OSTI ID: 1983774
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 2229929
• Report Number(s): BNL--224423-2023-JAAM
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 24 Vol. 131; ISSN 0031-9007
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English