Free Scalar Field Theory Research Articles

Torsional Newton–Cartan geometry from Galilean gauge theory

Using the recently advanced Galilean gauge theory (GGT) we give a comprehensive construction of torsional Newton–Cartan (NC) geometry. The coupling of a Galilean symmetric model with background NC geometry following GGT is illustrated by a free nonrelativistic scalar field theory. The issue of spatial diffeomorphism (Son and Wingate 2006 Ann. Phys. 321 197–224; Banerjee et al 2015 Phys. Rev. D 91 084021) is focussed from a new angle. The expression of the torsionful connection is worked out, which is in complete parallel with the relativistic theory. Also, smooth transition of the connection to its well known torsionless expression is demonstrated. A complete (implicit) expression of the torsion tensor for the NC spacetime is provided where the first-order variables occur in a suggestive way. The well known result for the temporal part of torsion is reproduced from our expression.

One-loop test of free SU(N ) adjoint model holography

We consider the holographic duality where the CFT side is given by $SU(N)$ adjoint free scalar field theory. Compared to the vector models, the set of single trace operators is immensely extended so that the corresponding AdS theory also contains infinitely many massive higher spin fields on top of the massless ones. We compute the one-loop vacuum energy of these AdS fields to test this duality at the subleading order in large $N$ expansion. The determination of the bulk vacuum energy requires a proper scheme to sum up the infinitely many contributions. For that, we develop a new method and apply it first to calculate the vacuum energies for the first few `Regge trajectories' in AdS$_4$ and AdS$_5$. In considering the full vacuum energy of AdS theory dual to a matrix model CFT, we find that there exist more than one available prescriptions for the one-loop vacuum energy. Taking a particular prescription, we determine the full vacuum energy of the AdS$_5$ theory, whereas the AdS$_4$ calculation still remains technically prohibitive. This result shows that the full vacuum energy of the AdS$_5$ theory coincides with minus of the free energy of a single scalar field on the boundary. This is analogous to the $O(N)$ vector model case, hence suggests an interpretation of the \emph{positive} shift of the bulk coupling constant, i.e. from $N^2-1$ to $N^2$.

Interactions as intertwiners in 4D QFT

In a recent paper we showed that the correlators of free scalar field theory in four dimensions can be constructed from a two dimensional topological field theory based on so(4,2) equivariant maps (intertwiners). The free field result, along with results of Frenkel and Libine on equivariance properties of Feynman integrals, are developed further in this paper. We show that the coefficient of the log term in the 1-loop 4-point conformal integral is a projector in the tensor product of so(4,2) representations. We also show that the 1-loop 4-point integral can be written as a sum of four terms, each associated with the quantum equation of motion for one of the four external legs. The quantum equation of motion is shown to be related to equivariant maps involving indecomposable representations of so(4,2), a phenomenon which illuminates multiplet recombination. The harmonic expansion method for Feynman integrals is a powerful tool for arriving at these results. The generalization to other interactions and higher loops is discussed.

Twist deformations leading to κ-Poincaré Hopf algebra and their application to physics

We consider two twist operators that lead to kappa-Poincaré Hopf algebra, the first being an Abelian one and the second corresponding to a light-like kappa-deformation of Poincaré algebra. The adventage of the second one is that it is expressed solely in terms of Poincaré generators. In contrast to this, the Abelian twist goes out of the boundaries of Poincaré algebra and runs into envelope of the general linear algebra. Some of the physical applications of these two different twist operators are considered. In particular, we use the Abelian twist to construct the statistics flip operator compatible with the action of deformed symmetry group. Furthermore, we use the light-like twist operator to define a star product and subsequently to formulate a free scalar field theory compatible with kappa-Poincaré Hopf algebra and appropriate for considering the interacting ϕ4 scalar field model on kappa-deformed space.

Smooth and fast versus instantaneous quenches in quantum field theory

We examine in detail the relationship between smooth fast quantum quenches, characterized by a time scale $\delta t$, and {\em instantaneous quenches}, within the framework of exactly solvable mass quenches in free scalar field theory. Our earlier studies \cite{dgm1,dgm2} highlighted that the two protocols remain distinct in the limit $\delta t \rightarrow 0$ because of the relation of the quench rate to the UV cut-off, i.e., $1/\delta t\ll\Lambda$ always holds in the fast smooth quenches while $1/\delta t\sim\Lambda$ for instantaneous quenches. Here we study UV finite quantities like correlators at finite spatial distances and the excess energy produced above the final ground state energy. We show that at late times and large distances (compared to the quench time scale) the smooth quench correlator approaches that for the instantaneous quench. At early times, we find that for small spatial separation and small $\delta t$, the correlator scales universally with $\delta t$, exactly as in the scaling of renormalized one point functions found in earlier work. At larger separation, the dependence on $\delta t$ drops out. The excess energy density is finite (for finite $m\delta t$) and scales in a universal fashion for all $d$. However, the scaling behaviour produces a divergent result in the limit $m\delta t \rightarrow 0$ for $d\ge4$, just as in an instantaneous quench, where it is UV divergent for $d \geq 4$. We argue that similar results hold for arbitrary interacting theories: the excess energy density produced is expected to diverge for scaling dimensions $\Delta > d/2$.

Light-like κ-deformations and scalar field theory via Drinfeld twist

In this article we will use the Drinfeld twist leading to light-like κ-deformations of Poincaré algebra. We shall apply the standard Hopf algebra methods in order to define the star-product, which shall be used to formulate a scalar field theory compatible with κ-Poincaré-Hopf algebra. Using this approach we show that there is no problem with formulating integration on κ-Minkowski space and no need for introducing a new measure. We have shown that the ★-product obtained from this twist enables us to define a free scalar field theory on κ-Minkowski space that is equivalent to a commutative one on a usual Minkowski space. We also discuss the interacting ϕ4 scalar field model compatible with κ-Poincaré-Hopf algebra.

Nonequilibrium transport through quantum-wire junctions and boundary defects for free massless bosonic fields

We consider a model of quantum-wire junctions where the latter are described by conformal-invariant boundary conditions of the simplest type in the multicomponent compactified massless scalar free field theory representing the bosonized Luttinger liquids in the bulk of wires. The boundary conditions result in the scattering of charges across the junction with nontrivial reflection and transmission amplitudes. The equilibrium state of such a system, corresponding to inverse temperature β and electric potential V, is explicitly constructed both for finite and for semi-infinite wires. In the latter case, a stationary nonequilibrium state describing the wires kept at different temperatures and potentials may be also constructed. The main result of the present paper is the calculation of the full counting statistics (FCS) of the charge and energy transfers through the junction in a nonequilibrium situation. Explicit expressions are worked out for the generating function of FCS and its large-deviations asymptotics. For the purely transmitting case they coincide with those obtained in the literature, but numerous cases of junctions with transmission and reflection are also covered. The large deviations rate function of FCS for charge and energy transfers is shown to satisfy the fluctuation relations and the expressions for FCS obtained here are compared with the Levitov–Lesovik formulae.

Entanglement entropy of annulus in three dimensions

The entanglement entropy of an annulus is examined in a three-dimensional system with or without a gap. For a free massive scalar field theory, we numerically calculate the mutual information across an annulus. We also study the holographic mutual information in the CGLP background describing a gapped field theory. We discover four types of solutions as the minimal surfaces for the annulus and classify the phase diagrams by varying the inner and outer radii. In both cases, we find the mutual information satisfies the monotonicity dictated by the unitarity and decays exponentially fast as the gap scale is increased. We speculate this is a universal behavior in any gapped system.

Universality in fast quantum quenches

We expand on the investigation of the universal scaling properties in the early time behaviour of fast but smooth quantum quenches in a general $d$-dimensional conformal field theory deformed by a relevant operator of dimension $\Delta$ with a time-dependent coupling. The quench consists of changing the coupling from an initial constant value $\lambda_1$ by an amount of the order of $\delta \lambda$ to some other final value $\lambda_2$, over a time scale $\delta t$. In the fast quench limit where $\delta t$ is smaller than all other length scales in the problem, $ \delta t \ll \lambda_1^{1/(\Delta-d)}, \lambda_2^{1/(\Delta-d)}, \delta \lambda^{1/(\Delta-d)}$, the energy (density) injected into the system scales as $\delta{\cal E} \sim (\delta \lambda)^2 (\delta t)^{d-2\Delta}$. Similarly, the change in the expectation value of the quenched operator at times earlier than the endpoint of the quench scales as $<{\cal O}_\Delta> \sim \delta \lambda (\delta t)^{d-2\Delta}$, with further logarithmic enhancements in certain cases. While these results were first found in holographic studies, we recently demonstrated that precisely the same scaling appears in fast mass quenches of free scalar and free fermionic field theories. As we describe in detail, the universal scaling refers to renormalized quantities, in which the UV divergent pieces are consistently renormalized away by subtracting counterterms derived with an adiabatic expansion. We argue that this scaling law is a property of the conformal field theory at the UV fixed point, valid for arbitrary relevant deformations and insensitive to the details of the quench protocol. Our results highlight the difference between smooth fast quenches and instantaneous quenches where the Hamiltonian abruptly changes at some time.

CFT4 as [formula omitted]-invariant TFT2

We show that correlators of local operators in four-dimensional free scalar field theory can be expressed in terms of amplitudes in a two-dimensional topological field theory (TFT2). We describe the state space of the TFT2, which has SO(4,2) as a global symmetry, and includes both positive and negative energy representations. Invariant amplitudes in the TFT2 correspond to surfaces interpolating from multiple circles to the vacuum. They are constructed from SO(4,2) invariant linear maps from the tensor product of the state spaces to complex numbers. When appropriate states labeled by 4D-spacetime coordinates are inserted at the circles, the TFT2 amplitudes become correlators of the four-dimensional CFT4. The TFT2 structure includes an associative algebra, related to crossing in the 4D-CFT, with a non-degenerate pairing related to the CFT inner product in the CFT4. In the free-field case, the TFT2/CFT4 correspondence can largely be understood as realization of free quantum field theory as a categorified form of classical invariant theory for appropriate SO(4,2) representations. We discuss the prospects of going beyond free fields in this framework.

Notes on quantum entanglement of local operators

This is an expanded version of the short report arXiv:1401.0539, where we stud- ied the (Renyi) entanglement entropies for the excited state defined by acting a given local operator on the ground state. We introduced the (Renyi) entanglement entropies of given local operators which measure the degrees of freedom of local operators and characterize them in conformal field theories from the viewpoint of quantum entanglement. In present paper, we explain how to compute them in free massless scalar field theories and we also investigate their time evolution. The results are interpreted in terms of relativistic propagation of an entangled pair. The main new results which we acquire in the present paper are as follows. Firstly, we provide an explanation which shows that the (Renyi) entanglement entropies of a specific operator are given by (Renyi) entanglement entropies of binomial distribution by the replica method. That operator is constructed of only scalar field. Secondly, we found the sum rule which (Renyi) entanglement entropies of those local operators obey. Those local operators are located separately. Moreover we argue that (Renyi) entanglement entropies of specific operators in conformal field theories are given by (Renyi) entanglement entropies of binomial distribution. These specific operators are constructed of single-species operator. We also argue that general operators obey the sum rule which we mentioned above.

Rényi entropy and geometry

Entanglement entropy in even dimensional conformal field theories (CFTs) contains well-known universal terms arising from the conformal anomaly. Renyi entropies are natural generalizations of the entanglement entropy that are much less understood. Above two spacetime dimensions, the universal terms in the Renyi entropies are unknown for general entangling geometries. We conjecture a new structure in the dependence of the four-dimensional Renyi entropies on the intrinsic and extrinsic geometry of the entangling surface. We provide evidence for this conjecture by direct numerical computations in the free scalar and fermion field theories. The computation involves relating the four-dimensional free massless Renyi entropies across cylindrical entangling surfaces to corresponding three-dimensional massive Renyi entropies across circular entangling surfaces. Our numerical technique also allows us to directly probe other interesting aspects of three-dimensional Renyi entropy, including the massless renormalized Renyi entropy and calculable contributions to the perimeter law.

Local Representation of N-Body Coulomb Energy with Path Integrals

We represent N-body Coulomb energy in a localized form to achieve massive parallelism. It is a well-known fact that Green's functions can be written as path integrals of field theory. Since two-body Coulomb potential is a Green's function of Poisson equations, it reduces to a path integral of free scalar field theory with three spatial dimensions. This means that N-body one also reduces to a path integral. We discretize real space with a cubic lattice and evaluate the obtained multiple integrals approximately with the Markov-chain Monte Carlo method.

On numerical calculation of Rényi entropy for a sphere

We numerically compute the Rényi entropy for four-dimensional free scalar field theory with a spherical entangling surface. As is well known, the Rényi entropy as a function of the boundary area exhibits linear dependence in the leading order. The coefficient of the subleading logarithmic term from our numerical data, as a function of the Rényi order q, agrees nicely with the general prediction of conformal field theory computation. The motivation of this work is also partly to see how the efficiency of numerical computation changes as a function of q. For q<1 the summation over eigenvalues of reduced density matrix takes longer since the series converges more slowly than for q=1. For q>1 the convergence is faster, but the relative error becomes large as a general trend.

Universal scaling in fast quantum quenches in conformal field theories.

We study the time evolution of a conformal field theory deformed by a relevant operator under a smooth but fast quantum quench which brings it to the conformal point. We argue that when the quench time scale δt is small compared to the scale set by the relevant coupling, the expectation value of the quenched operator scales universally as δλ/δt(2Δ-d), where δλ is the quench amplitude. This growth is further enhanced by a logarithmic factor in even dimensions. We present explicit results for free scalar and fermionic field theories, supported by an analytic understanding of the leading contribution for fast quenches. Our results suggest that this scaling result, first found in holography, is in fact quite general. Our considerations also show that this limit of fast smooth quenches is quite different from an instantaneous quench from one time-independent Hamiltonian to another, where the state at the time of the quench serves as an initial condition for subsequent evolution with the final Hamiltonian.

Entanglement between two interacting CFTs and generalized holographic entanglement entropy

In this paper we discuss behaviors of entanglement entropy between two interacting CFTs and its holographic interpretation using the AdS/CFT correspondence. We explicitly perform analytical calculations of entanglement entropy between two free scalar field theories which are interacting with each other in both static and time-dependent ways. We also conjecture a holographic calculation of entanglement entropy between two interacting $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theories by introducing a minimal surface in the S$^5$ direction, instead of the AdS$_5$ direction. This offers a possible generalization of holographic entanglement entropy.

Quantum Entanglement of Local Operators in Conformal Field Theories

We introduce a series of quantities which characterize a given local operator in any conformal field theory from the viewpoint of quantum entanglement. It is defined by the increased amount of (Rényi) entanglement entropy at late time for an excited state defined by acting the local operator on the vacuum. We consider a conformal field theory on an infinite space and take the subsystem in the definition of the entanglement entropy to be its half. We calculate these quantities for a free massless scalar field theory in two, four and six dimensions. We find that these results are interpreted in terms of quantum entanglement of a finite number of states, including Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen states. They agree with a heuristic picture of propagations of entangled particles.

Propagators in de Sitter space

In a spacetime with no global timelike Killing vector, we do not have a natural choice for the vacuum state of matter fields, leading to an ambiguity in defining the Feynman propagators. In this paper, taking the vacuum state to be the instantaneous ground state of the Hamiltonian at each moment, we develop a method for calculating wave functions associated with the vacuum and the corresponding in-in and in-out propagators. We apply this method to free scalar field theory in de Sitter space and obtain de Sitter invariant propagators in various coordinate patches. We show that the in-out propagator in the Poincare patch has a finite massless limit in a de Sitter invariant form. We argue and numerically check that our in-out propagators agree with those obtained by a path integral with the standard i\epsilon prescription, and identify the condition on a foliation of spacetime under which such coincidence can happen for the foliation. We also show that the in-out propagators satisfy Polyakov's composition law. Several applications of our framework are also discussed.

Entanglement at a two-dimensional quantum critical point: a T = 0 projector quantum Monte Carlo study

Although the leading-order scaling of entanglement entropy is non-universal at a quantum critical point (QCP), sub-leading scaling can contain universal behaviour. Such universal quantities are commonly studied in non-interacting field theories, however it typically requires numerical calculation to access them in interacting theories. In this paper, we use large-scale T = 0 quantum Monte Carlo simulations to examine in detail the second Rényi entropy of entangled regions at the QCP in the transverse-field Ising model in 2 + 1 space–time dimensions—a fixed point for which there is no exact result for the scaling of entanglement entropy. We calculate a universal coefficient of a vertex-induced logarithmic scaling for a polygonal entangled subregion, and compare the result to interacting and non-interacting theories. We also examine the shape-dependence of the Rényi entropy for finite-size toroidal lattices divided into two entangled cylinders by smooth boundaries. Remarkably, we find that the dependence on cylinder length follows a shape-dependent function calculated previously by Stephan et al (2013 New J. Phys. 15 015004) at the QCP corresponding to the 2 + 1 dimensional quantum Lifshitz free scalar field theory. The quality of the fit of our data to this scaling function, as well as the apparent cutoff-independent coefficient that results, presents tantalizing evidence that this function may reflect universal behaviour across these and other very disparate QCPs in 2 + 1 dimensional systems.

Generalized uncertainty principles and quantum field theory

Quantum mechanics with a generalized uncertainty principle arises through a representation of the commutator $[\stackrel{^}{x},\stackrel{^}{p}]=if(\stackrel{^}{p})$. We apply this deformed quantization to free scalar field theory for ${f}_{\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}=1\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\beta}{p}^{2}$. The resulting quantum field theories have a rich fine scale structure. For small wavelength modes, the Green's function for ${f}_{+}$ exhibits a remarkable transition from Lorentz to Galilean invariance, whereas for ${f}_{\ensuremath{-}}$ such modes effectively do not propagate. For both cases Lorentz invariance is recovered at long wavelengths.