Universal behavior of entanglement in 2D quantum critical dimer models

Benjamin Hsu, Eduardo Fradkin

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We examine the scaling behavior of the entanglement entropy for the 2D quantum dimer model (QDM) at criticality and derive the universal finite subleading correction γQCP. We compute the value of γQCP without approximation working directly with the wavefunction of a generalized 2D QDM at the Rokhsar- Kivelson QCP in the continuum limit. Using the replica approach, we construct the conformal boundary state corresponding to the cyclic identification of ncopies along the boundary of the observed region. We find that the universal finite term is γQCP = lnR - 1/2 where R is the compactification radius of the Bose field theory quantum Lifshitz model, the effective field theory of the 2D QDM at quantum criticality. We also demonstrated that the entanglement spectrum of the critical wavefunction on a large but finite region is described by the characters of the underlying conformal field theory. It is shown that this is formally related to the problems of quantum Brownian motion on n-dimensional lattices or equivalently a system of strings interacting with a brane containing a background electromagnetic field and can be written as an expectation value of a vertex operator.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numberP09004
JournalJournal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment
Volume2010
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 2010

Keywords

  • Conformal field theory
  • Conformal field theory (theory)
  • Dimers (theory)
  • Entanglement in extended quantum systems (theory)

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Statistics and Probability
  • Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
  • Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty

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