English

Petz-R\'enyi relative entropy in QFT from modular theory

Mathematical Physics 2025-03-18 v3 math.MP

Abstract

We consider the generalization of the Araki-Uhlmann formula for relative entropy to Petz-R\'enyi relative entropy. We compute this entropy for a free scalar field in the Minkowski wedge between the vacuum and a coherent state, as well as for the free chiral current in a thermal state. In contrast to the relative entropy which in these cases only depends on the sympletic form and thus reduces to the classical entropy of a wave packet, the Petz-R\'enyi relative entropy also depends on the symmetric part of the two-point function and is thus genuinely quantum. We also consider the relation with standard subspaces, where we define the R\'enyi entropy of a vector and show that it admits an upper bound given by the entropy of the vector.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2411.09696,
  title  = {Petz-R\'enyi relative entropy in QFT from modular theory},
  author = {Markus B. Fröb and Leonardo Sangaletti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.09696},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

22 pages, matches published version