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Wolfgang Spitzer

Publications and source records attributed to Wolfgang Spitzer.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Entanglement entropy of ground states of the Landau Hamiltonian on the half-plane

We study the entanglement entropy of ground states of a Hamiltonian defined on a domain with a boundary. Surprisingly, boundary conditions can change the spectrum and the nature of the spectrum drastically but not the leading behaviour of the entanglement entropy. As is well-known, the Landau Hamiltonian on the full plane has pure point spectrum (the infinitely degenerate Landau levels) and ground states display a so-called strict area law. On the other hand, the Landau Hamiltonian on the half-plane has purely absolutely continuous spectrum and yet we prove a strict area law for its ground states. We raise the question of what extra or finer conditions on the absolutely continuous spectrum are necessary to guarantee a logarithmically enhanced area-law as we have for the Laplace operator.

math-ph

Entanglement entropy in the ground state of non-interacting massless Dirac fermions in dimension one

We present a novel proof of a formula of Casini and Huerta for the entanglement entropy of the ground state of non-interacting massless Dirac fermions in dimension one localized to (a union of) intervals and generalize it to the case of Rényi entropies. At first, we prove that these entropies are well-defined for non-intersecting intervals. This is accomplished by an inequality of Alexander V.~Sobolev. Then we compute this entropy using a trace formula for Wiener--Hopf operators by Harold Widom. For intersecting intervals, we discuss an extended entropy formula of Casini and Huerta and support this with a proof for polynomial test functions (instead of entropy).

math-ph

Logarithmically enhanced area-laws for fermions in vanishing magnetic fields in dimension two

We consider fermionic ground states of the Landau Hamiltonian, $H_B$, in a constant magnetic field of strength $B>0$ in $\mathbb R^2$ at some fixed Fermi energy $μ>0$, described by the Fermi projection $P_B:= 1(H_B\le μ)$. For some fixed bounded domain $Λ\subset \mathbb{R}^2$ with boundary set $\partialΛ$ and an $L>0$ we restrict these ground states spatially to the scaled domain $L Λ$ and denote the corresponding localised Fermi projection by $P_B(LΛ)$. Then we study the scaling of the Hilbert-space trace, $\mathrm{tr} f(P_B(LΛ))$, for polynomials $f$ with $f(0)=f(1)=0$ of these localised ground states in the joint limit $L\to\infty$ and $B\to0$. We obtain to leading order logarithmically enhanced area-laws depending on the size of $LB$. Roughly speaking, if $1/B$ tends to infinity faster than $L$, then we obtain the known enhanced area-law (by the Widom--Sobolev formula) of the form $L \ln(L) a(f,μ) |\partialΛ|$ as $L\to\infty$ for the (two-dimensional) Laplacian with Fermi projection $1(H_0\le μ)$. On the other hand, if $L$ tends to infinity faster than $1/B$, then we get an area law with an $L \ln(μ/B) a(f,μ) |\partialΛ|$ asymptotic expansion as $B\to0$. The numerical coefficient $a(f,μ)$ in both cases is the same and depends solely on the function $f$ and on $μ$. The asymptotic result in the latter case is based upon the recent joint work of Leschke, Sobolev and the second named author for fixed $B$, a proof of the sine-kernel asymptotics on a global scale, and on the enhanced area-law in dimension one by Landau and Widom. In the special but important case of a quadratic function $f$ we are able to cover the full range of parameters $B$ and $L$. In general, we have a smaller region of parameters $(B,L)$ where we can prove the two-scale asymptotic expansion $\mathrm{tr} f(P_B(LΛ))$ as $L\to\infty$ and $B\to0$.

math-ph

Rényi entropies of the free Fermi gas in multi-dimensional space at high temperature

We study the local and (bipartite) entanglement Rényi entropies of the free Fermi gas in multi-dimensional Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^d$ in thermal equilibrium. We prove positivity of the entanglement entropies with Rényi index $γ\leq1$ for all temperatures $T>0$. Furthermore, for general $γ>0$ we establish the asymptotics of the entropies for large $T$ and large scaling parameter $α>0$ for two different regimes $-$ for fixed chemical potential $μ\in\mathbb{R}$ and also for fixed particle density $ρ>0$. In particular, we thereby provide the last remaining building block for a complete proof of our low- and high-temperature results presented (for $γ=1$) in J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. $\textbf{49}$, 30LT04 (2016) [Corrigendum: $\textbf{50}$, 129501 (2017)], but being supported there only by the basic proof ideas.

math-ph

Asymptotic growth of the local ground-state entropy of the ideal Fermi gas in a constant magnetic field

We consider the ideal Fermi gas of indistinguishable particles without spin but with electric charge, confined to a Euclidean plane $\mathbb R^2$ perpendicular to an external constant magnetic field of strength $B>0$. We assume this (infinite) quantum gas to be in thermal equilibrium at zero temperature, that is, in its ground state with chemical potential $μ\ge B$ (in suitable physical units). For this (pure) state we define its local entropy $S(Λ)$ associated with a bounded (sub)region $Λ\subset \mathbb R^2$ as the von Neumann entropy of the (mixed) local substate obtained by reducing the infinite-area ground state to this region $Λ$ of finite area $|Λ|$. In this setting we prove that the leading asymptotic growth of $S(LΛ)$, as the dimensionless scaling parameter $L>0$ tends to infinity, has the form $L\sqrt{B}|\partialΛ|$ up to a precisely given (positive multiplicative) coefficient which is independent of $Λ$ and dependent on $B$ and $μ$ only through the integer part of $(μ/B-1)/2$. Here we have assumed the boundary curve $\partialΛ$ of $Λ$ to be sufficiently smooth which, in particular, ensures that its arc length $|\partialΛ|$ is well-defined. This result is in agreement with a so-called area-law scaling (for two spatial dimensions). It contrasts the zero-field case $B=0$, where an additional logarithmic factor $\ln(L)$ is known to be present. We also have a similar result, with a slightly more explicit coefficient, for the simpler situation where the underlying single-particle Hamiltonian, known as the Landau Hamiltonian, is restricted from its natural Hilbert space $\text L^2(\mathbb R^2)$ to the eigenspace of a single but arbitrary Landau level. Both results extend to the whole one-parameter family of quantum Rényi entropies.

math-ph

Entanglement entropy of ground states of the three-dimensional ideal Fermi gas in a magnetic field

We study the asymptotic growth of the entanglement entropy of ground states of non-interacting (spinless) fermions in $\mathbb R^3$ subject to a non-zero, constant magnetic field perpendicular to a plane. As for the case with no magnetic field we find, to leading order $L^2\ln(L)$, a logarithmically enhanced area law of this entropy for a bounded, piecewise Lipschitz region $LΛ\subset \mathbb R^3$ as the scaling parameter $L$ tends to infinity. This is in contrast to the two-dimensional case since particles can now move freely in the direction of the magnetic field, which causes the extra $\ln(L)$ factor. The explicit expression for the coefficient of the leading order contains a surface integral similar to the Widom formula in the non-magnetic case. It differs however in the sense that the dependence on the boundary is not solely on its area but on the "area perpendicular to the direction of the magnetic field". On the way we prove an improved two-term asymptotic expansion (up to an error term of order one) of certain traces of one-dimensional Wiener--Hopf operators with a discontinuous symbol. This is of independent interest and leads to an improved error term of the order $L^2$ of the relevant trace for piecewise $\mathsf{C}^{1,α}$ smooth surfaces $\partial Λ$.

math-ph

The free energy of a quantum Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin-glass model for weak disorder

We extend two rigorous results of Aizenman, Lebowitz, and Ruelle in their pioneering paper of 1987 on the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin-glass model without external magnetic field to the quantum case with a "transverse field" of strength $b$. More precisely, if the Gaussian disorder is weak in the sense that its standard deviation $v>0$ is smaller than the temperature $1/β$, then the (random) free energy almost surely equals the annealed free energy in the macroscopic limit and there is no spin-glass phase for any $b/v\geq0$. The macroscopic annealed free energy (times $β$) turns out to be non-trivial and given, for any $βv>0$, by the global minimum of a certain functional of square-integrable functions on the unit square according to a Varadhan large-deviation principle. For $βv<1$ we determine this minimum up to the order $(βv)^4$ with the Taylor coefficients explicitly given as functions of $βb$ and with a remainder not exceeding $(βv)^6/16$. As a by-product we prove that the so-called static approximation to the minimization problem yields the wrong $βb$-dependence even to lowest order. Our main tool for dealing with the non-commutativity of the spin-operator components is a probabilistic representation of the Boltzmann-Gibbs operator by a Feynman-Kac (path-integral) formula based on an independent collection of Poisson processes in the positive half-line with common rate $βb$. Its essence dates back to Kac in 1956, but the formula was published only in 1989 by Gaveau and Schulman.

math-ph

On a condition for type-I Bose-Einstein condensation in random potentials in $d$ dimensions

In this paper we discuss Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in systems of pairwise non-interacting bosons in random potentials in $d$ dimensions. Working in a rather general framework, we provide a "gap condition" which is sufficient to conclude existence of type-I BEC in probability and in the $r$th mean. We illustrate our results in the context of the well-known (one-dimensional) Luttinger-Sy model. Here, whenever the particle density exceeds a critical value, we show in addition that only the ground state is macroscopically occupied.

math-ph

On Bose-Einstein condensation in the Luttinger-Sy model with finite interaction strength

We study Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) in the Luttinger-Sy model. Here, Bose point particles in one spatial dimension do not interact with each other, but, through a positive (repulsive) point potential with impurities which are randomly located along the real line according to the points of a Poisson process. Our emphasis is on the case in which the interaction strength is not infinite. As a main result, we prove that in thermal equilibrium the one-particle ground state is macroscopically occupied, provided that the particle density is larger than a critical one depending on the temperature.

math-ph

Bose--Einstein condensation in the Luttinger--Sy model with contact interaction

We study bosons on the real line in a Poisson random potential (Luttinger--Sy model) with contact interaction in the thermodynamic limit at absolute zero temperature. We prove that generalized Bose--Einstein condensation (BEC) occurs almost surely if the intensity $ν_N$ of the Poisson potential satisfies $[\ln (N)]^4/N^{1 - 2η} \ll ν_N \lesssim 1$ for arbitrary $0 < η\leq 1/3$. We also show that the contact interaction alters the type of condensation, going from a type-I BEC to a type-III BEC as the strength of this interaction is increased. Furthermore, for sufficiently strong contact interactions and $0 < η< 1/6$ we prove that the mean particle density in the largest interval is almost surely bounded asymptotically by $ν_NN^{3/5+δ}$ for $δ> 0$.

math-ph

Ground-state energy of one-dimensional free Fermi gases in the thermodynamic limit

We study the ground-state energy of one-dimensional, non-interacting fermions subject to an external potential in the thermodynamic limit. To this end, we fix some (Fermi) energy $ν>0$, confine fermions with total energy below $ν$ inside the interval $[-L,L]$ and study the shift of the ground-state energy due to the potential $V$ in the thermodynamic limit $L\to\infty$. We show that the difference $\mathcal{E}_L(ν)$ of the two ground-state energies with and without potential can be decomposed into a term of order one (leading to the Fumi-term) and a term of order $1/L$, which yields the so-called finite size energy. We compute both terms for all possible boundary conditions explicitly and express them through the scattering data of the one-particle Schrödinger operator $-Δ+V$ on $L^2(\mathbb R)$.

math-ph

Large-scale behaviour of local and entanglement entropy of the free Fermi gas at any temperature

The leading asymptotic large-scale behaviour of the spatially bipartite entanglement entropy (EE) of the free Fermi gas infinitely extended in multidimensional Euclidean space at zero absolute temperature, T=0, is by now well understood. Here, we present and discuss the first rigorous results for the corresponding EE of thermal equilibrium states at T>0. The leading large-scale term of this thermal EE turns out to be twice the first-order finite-size correction to the infinite-volume thermal entropy (density). Not surprisingly, this correction is just the thermal entropy on the interface of the bipartition. However, it is given by a rather complicated integral derived from a semiclassical trace formula for a certain operator on the underlying one-particle Hilbert space. But in the zero-temperature limit the leading large-scale term of the thermal EE considerably simplifies and displays a ln(1/T)-singularity which one may identify with the known logarithmic enhancement at T=0 of the so-called area-law scaling.

quant-ph

Trace formulas for Wiener--Hopf operators with applications to entropies of free fermionic equilibrium states

We consider non-smooth functions of (truncated) Wiener--Hopf type operators on the Hilbert space $L^2(\mathbb R^d)$. Our main results are uniform estimates for trace norms ($d\ge 1$) and quasiclassical asymptotic formulas for traces of the resulting operators ($d=1$). Here, we follow Harold Widom's seminal ideas, who proved such formulas for smooth functions decades ago. The extension to non-smooth functions and the uniformity of the estimates in various (physical) parameters rest on recent advances by one of the authors (AVS). We use our results to obtain the large-scale behaviour of the local entropy and the spatially bipartite entanglement entropy (EE) of thermal equilibrium states of non-interacting fermions in position space $\mathbb R^d$ ($d\ge 1$) at positive temperature, $T>0$. In particular, our definition of the thermal EE leads to estimates that are simultaneously sharp for small $T$ and large scaling parameter $α>0$ provided that the product $Tα$ remains bounded from below. Here $α$ is the reciprocal quasiclassical parameter. For $d=1$ we obtain for the thermal EE an asymptotic formula which is consistent with the large-scale behaviour of the ground-state EE (at $T=0$), previously established by the authors for $d\ge 1$.

math.SP

Anderson's orthogonality catastrophe in one dimension induced by a magnetic field

According to Anderson's orthogonality catastrophe, the overlap of the $N$-particle ground states of a free Fermi gas with and without an (electric) potential decays in the thermodynamic limit. For the finite one-dimensional system various boundary conditions are employed. Unlike the usual setup the perturbation is introduced by a magnetic (vector) potential. Although such a magnetic field can be gauged away in one spatial dimension there is a significant and interesting effect on the overlap caused by the phases. We study the leading asymptotics of the overlap of the two ground states and the two-term asymptotics of the difference of the ground-state energies. In the case of periodic boundary conditions our main result on the overlap is based upon a well-known asymptotic expansion by Fisher and Hartwig on Toeplitz determinants with a discontinuous symbol. In the case of Dirichlet boundary conditions no such result is known to us and we only provide an upper bound on the overlap, presumably of the right asymptotic order.

math-ph

Scaling of Rényi entanglement entropies of the free Fermi-gas ground state: a rigorous proof

In a remarkable paper [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 100503 (2006)], Dimitri Gioev and Israel Klich conjectured an explicit formula for the leading asymptotic growth of the spatially bi-partite von-Neumann entanglement entropy of non-interacting fermions in multi-dimensional Euclidean space at zero temperature. Based on recent progress by one of us (A.V.S.) in semi-classical functional calculus for pseudo-differential operators with discontinuous symbols, we provide here a complete proof of that formula and of its generalization to Rényi entropies of all orders $α>0$. The special case $α=1/2$ is also known under the name logarithmic negativity and often considered to be a particularly useful quantification of entanglement. These formulas, exhibiting a "logarithmically enhanced area law", have been used already in many publications.

math-ph

Localization for transversally periodic random potentials on binary trees

We consider a random Schrödinger operator on the binary tree with a random potential which is the sum of a random radially symmetric potential, $Q_r$, and a random transversally periodic potential, $κQ_t$, with coupling constant $κ$. Using a new one-dimensional dynamical systems approach combined with Jensen's inequality in hyperbolic space (our key estimate) we obtain a fractional moment estimate proving localization for small and large $κ$. Together with a previous result we therefore obtain a model with two Anderson transitions, from localization to delocalization and back to localization, when increasing $κ$. As a by-product we also have a partially new proof of one-dimensional Anderson localization at any disorder.

math-ph

Anderson's Orthogonality Catastrophe for One-dimensional Systems

We derive rigorously the leading asymptotics of the so-called Anderson integral in the thermodynamic limit for one-dimensional, non-relativistic, spin-less Fermi systems. The coefficient, $γ$, of the leading term is computed in terms of the S-matrix. This implies a lower and an upper bound on the exponent in Anderson's orthogonality catastrophe, $\tilde CN^{-\tildeγ}\leq \mathcal{D}_N\leq CN^{-γ}$ pertaining to the overlap, $\mathcal{D}_N$, of ground states of non-interacting fermions.

math-ph