Anomalies and Entanglement Entropy

TL;DR

This paper explores how gauge and gravitational anomalies influence entanglement and Renyi entropies in quantum field theories, revealing their boost sensitivity and providing explicit examples in complex spacetime backgrounds.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic analysis of anomalies' effects on entanglement entropy, deriving a closed form for boost dependence and constructing explicit models with non-trivial fluxes and topologies.

Findings

Anomalies affect entanglement entropy in a boost-dependent manner.

Explicit formulas for entanglement entropy under boosts are derived.

Dependence on magnetic fluxes and Pontryagin classes is demonstrated.

Abstract

We initiate a systematic study of entanglement and Renyi entropies in the presence of gauge and gravitational anomalies in even-dimensional quantum field theories. We argue that the mixed and gravitational anomalies are sensitive to boosts and obtain a closed form expression for their behavior under such transformations. Explicit constructions exhibiting the dependence of entanglement entropy on boosts is provided for theories on spacetimes with non-trivial magnetic fluxes and (or) non-vanishing Pontryagin classes.