An Area Law for Entanglement Entropy in Particle Scattering

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Hauptverfasser: Low, Ian, Yin, Zhewei
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Low, Ian
Yin, Zhewei
author_facet Low, Ian
Yin, Zhewei
contents The scattering cross section is the effective area of collision when two particles collide. Quantum mechanically, it is a measure of the probability for a specific process to take place. Employing wave packets to describe the scattering process, we compute the entanglement entropy in 2-to-2 scattering of particles in a general setting using the $S$-matrix formalism. Applying the optical theorem, we show that the linear entropy $\mathcal{E}_2$ is given by the elastic cross section $σ_{\text{el}}$ in unit of the transverse size $L^2$ of the wave packet, $\mathcal{E}_2 \sim σ_{\text{el}}/L^2$, when the initial states are not entangled. The result allows for dual interpretations of the entanglement entropy as an area and as a probability. Since $σ_{\text{el}}$ is generally believed, and observed experimentally, to grow with the collision energy $\sqrt{s}$ in the high energy regime, the result suggests a "second law" of entanglement entropy for high energy collisions. Furthermore, the Froissart bound places an upper limit on the entropy growth.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_08056
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Area Law for Entanglement Entropy in Particle Scattering
Low, Ian
Yin, Zhewei
High Energy Physics - Theory
Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Theory
Quantum Physics
The scattering cross section is the effective area of collision when two particles collide. Quantum mechanically, it is a measure of the probability for a specific process to take place. Employing wave packets to describe the scattering process, we compute the entanglement entropy in 2-to-2 scattering of particles in a general setting using the $S$-matrix formalism. Applying the optical theorem, we show that the linear entropy $\mathcal{E}_2$ is given by the elastic cross section $σ_{\text{el}}$ in unit of the transverse size $L^2$ of the wave packet, $\mathcal{E}_2 \sim σ_{\text{el}}/L^2$, when the initial states are not entangled. The result allows for dual interpretations of the entanglement entropy as an area and as a probability. Since $σ_{\text{el}}$ is generally believed, and observed experimentally, to grow with the collision energy $\sqrt{s}$ in the high energy regime, the result suggests a "second law" of entanglement entropy for high energy collisions. Furthermore, the Froissart bound places an upper limit on the entropy growth.
title An Area Law for Entanglement Entropy in Particle Scattering
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Theory
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.08056