Meson content of entanglement spectra after integrable and nonintegrable quantum quenches

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the entanglement spectrum reflects mesonic bound states after quantum quenches in the Ising model, revealing that the dominant eigenvalue encodes meson content and signals dynamical phase transitions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the dominant eigenvalue of the modular Hamiltonian captures meson content and identifies dynamical quantum phase transitions in quenched Ising models.

Findings

Dominant eigenvalue encodes meson content.

Entanglement oscillations are nearly identical in different regimes.

Cusps in return rate density indicate dynamical phase transitions.

Abstract

We use tensor network simulations to calculate the time evolution of the lower part of the entanglement spectrum and return rate functions after global quantum quenches in the Ising model. We consider ground state quenches towards mesonic parameter ranges with confined fermion pairs as nonperturbative bound states in a semiclassical regime and the relativistic E$_8$ theory. We find that in both cases only the dominant eigenvalue of the modular Hamiltonian fully encodes the meson content of the quantum many-body system or quantum field theory, giving rise to nearly identical entanglement oscillations in the entanglement entropy. When the initial state is prepared in the paramagnetic phase, the return rate density exhibits regular cusps at unequally spaced positions, signaling the appearance of dynamical quantum phase transitions, at which the entanglement spectrum remains gapped. Our analyses provide a deeper understanding on the role of quantum information quantities for the dynamics of emergent phenomena reminiscent of systems in high-energy physics.