English

Entanglement Entropy from String Field Theory (and a Higher-Spin Example)

High Energy Physics - Theory 2019-08-06 v6

Abstract

We study the new class of solutions in linearized open string field theory (OSFT) involving higher-spin modes. Unlike the elementary OSFT solutions (on-shell vertex operators) that, acting on a vacuum, define wavefunctions of pure states (e.g. a tachyon), the solutions that we describe correspond to the reduced density matrices which eigenvalues describe the entanglement between higher-spin modes with different spin values. We compute the entanglement entropy on these OSFT solutions, and the answer is expressed in terms of converging series in inverse weighted partition numbers. In the case of DD-dimensional bosonic string theory, the entanglement entropy of spin 11 subsystem and the system of all the spin values is given by Dlogλ0+Dλ0N=3β(N)λ(N)log(λ(N)β(N))D{\log{\lambda_0}}+{D\over{\lambda_0}}\sum_{N=3}^\infty{{|\beta(N)|}\over{\lambda(N)}} {\log{({{\lambda(N)}\over{|\beta(N)|}})}}, where λ(N)\lambda(N) is the weighted number of partitions of NN, β(N)=(N1)ζ(3)ζ(2)(N1)4\beta(N)={{(N-1)\zeta(3)-\zeta(2)}\over{(N-1)^4}} and λ0=N=1β(N)λ(N)\lambda_0=\sum_{N=1}^{\infty}{{\beta(N)}\over{\lambda(N)}} (ζ\zeta is Riemann's zeta-function). The first term, Dlogλ0D{\log{\lambda_0}}, represents the entanglement swapping between string vacuum and string excitations. We generalize this result to obtain the entanglement for a subsystem of a given spin ss in a given space-time dimension. We also discuss how open string field theory may be used to study the entanglement of systems other than higher spin excitations in string theory.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1905.06708,
  title  = {Entanglement Entropy from String Field Theory (and a Higher-Spin Example)},
  author = {Dimitri Polyakov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1905.06708},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

23 pages, SFT solution is revisited and modified to regularization-free expression to define a normalizable mized state; final answer for entanglement entropy and discussion section are modified accordingly

R2 v1 2026-06-23T09:08:38.114Z