Page-curve-like entanglement dynamics in open quantum systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Glatthard, Jonas
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Glatthard, Jonas
author_facet Glatthard, Jonas
contents The entanglement entropy of a black hole, and that of its Hawking radiation, are expected to follow the so-called Page curve: After an increase in line with Hawking's calculation, it is expected to decrease back to zero once the black hole has fully evaporated, as demanded by unitarity. Recently, a simple system-plus-bath model has been proposed which shows a similar behaviour. Here, we make a general argument as to why such a Page-curve-like entanglement dynamics should be expected to hold generally for system-plus-bath models at small coupling and low temperatures, when the system is initialised in a pure state far from equilibrium. The interaction with the bath will then generate entanglement entropy, but it eventually has to decrease to the value prescribed by the corresponding mean-force Gibbs state. Under those conditions, it is close to the system ground state. We illustrate this on two paradigmatic open-quantum-system models, the exactly solvable harmonic quantum Brownian motion and the spin-boson model, which we study numerically. In the first example we find that the intermediate entropy of an initially localised impurity is higher for more localised initial states. In the second example, for an impurity initialised in the excited state, the Page time--when the entropy reaches its maximum--occurs when the excitation has half decayed.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_06042
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Page-curve-like entanglement dynamics in open quantum systems
Glatthard, Jonas
Quantum Physics
Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Theory
The entanglement entropy of a black hole, and that of its Hawking radiation, are expected to follow the so-called Page curve: After an increase in line with Hawking's calculation, it is expected to decrease back to zero once the black hole has fully evaporated, as demanded by unitarity. Recently, a simple system-plus-bath model has been proposed which shows a similar behaviour. Here, we make a general argument as to why such a Page-curve-like entanglement dynamics should be expected to hold generally for system-plus-bath models at small coupling and low temperatures, when the system is initialised in a pure state far from equilibrium. The interaction with the bath will then generate entanglement entropy, but it eventually has to decrease to the value prescribed by the corresponding mean-force Gibbs state. Under those conditions, it is close to the system ground state. We illustrate this on two paradigmatic open-quantum-system models, the exactly solvable harmonic quantum Brownian motion and the spin-boson model, which we study numerically. In the first example we find that the intermediate entropy of an initially localised impurity is higher for more localised initial states. In the second example, for an impurity initialised in the excited state, the Page time--when the entropy reaches its maximum--occurs when the excitation has half decayed.
title Page-curve-like entanglement dynamics in open quantum systems
topic Quantum Physics
Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.06042