Holographic entanglement entropy close to crossover/phase transition in strongly coupled systems

TL;DR

This paper studies how holographic entanglement entropy behaves near phase transitions in a QCD model, revealing its potential to signal confinement and characterize different phase structures.

Contribution

It demonstrates that entanglement entropy can effectively probe and distinguish various phase transitions in a holographic QCD model with tunable parameters.

Findings

Entanglement entropy drops sharply near the critical temperature.

It signals confinement and phase transition types.

Critical behavior of entanglement entropy characterizes phase structures.

Abstract

We investigate the behavior of entanglement entropy in the holographic QCD model proposed by Gubser et al. By choosing suitable parameters of the scalar self-interaction potential, this model can exhibit various types of phase structures: crossover, first order and second order phase transitions. We use entanglement entropy to probe the crossover/phase transition, and find that it drops quickly/suddenly when the temperature approaches the critical point which can be seen as a signal of confinement. Moreover, the critical behavior of the entanglement entropy suggests that we may use it to characterize the corresponding phase structures.