English

Universal logarithmic corrections to entanglement entropies in two dimensions with spontaneously broken continuous symmetries

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2015-05-01 v1 Quantum Physics

Abstract

We explore the R\'enyi entanglement entropies of a one-dimensional (line) subsystem of length LL embedded in two-dimensional L×LL\times L square lattice for quantum spin models whose ground-state breaks a continuous symmetry in the thermodynamic limit. Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we first study the J1J2J_1 - J_2 Heisenberg model with antiferromagnetic nearest-neighbor J1>0J_1>0 and ferromagnetic second-neighbor couplings J20J_2\le 0. The signature of SU(2) symmetry breaking on finite size systems, ranging from L=4L=4 up to L=40L=40 clearly appears as a universal additive logarithmic correction to the R\'enyi entanglement entropies: lqlnLl_q \ln L with lq1l_q\simeq 1, independent of the R\'enyi index and values of J2J_2. We confirm this result using a high precision spin-wave analysis (with restored spin rotational symmetry) on finite lattices up to 105×10510^5\times 10^5 sites, allowing to explore further non-universal finite size corrections and study in addition the case of U(1) symmetry breaking. Our results fully agree with the prediction lq=nG/2l_q=n_G/2 where nGn_G is the number of Goldstone modes, by Metlitski and Grover [arXiv:1112.5166].

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1503.01094,
  title  = {Universal logarithmic corrections to entanglement entropies in two dimensions with spontaneously broken continuous symmetries},
  author = {David J. Luitz and Xavier Plat and Fabien Alet and Nicolas Laflorencie},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.01094},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

6 pages, 6 figures