A Quantum Information Perspective on Many-Body Dispersive Forces

TL;DR

This paper explores the quantum many-body properties of dispersion forces using quantum Drude oscillators, revealing how entanglement influences the nature of many-body corrections in dispersion-bound systems.

Contribution

It establishes an analytic link between entanglement and correlation energy, and shows how entanglement monogamy governs many-body dispersion effects.

Findings

Entanglement correlates with the sign of many-body dispersion corrections.

Monogamy of entanglement determines whether corrections are attractive or repulsive.

Results apply to various chemical environments with multiple cohesive forces.

Abstract

Despite its ubiquity, the quantum many-body properties of dispersion remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the entanglement distribution in assemblies of quantum Drude oscillators, minimal models for dispersion-bound systems. We establish an analytic relationship between entanglement and correlation energy and show how entanglement monogamy determines whether many-body corrections to the pair potential are attractive, repulsive, or zero. These findings, demonstrated in trimers and extended lattices, apply in more general chemical environments where dispersion coexists with other cohesive forces.