Entanglement scaling and dynamics in the Sauter-Schwinger effect

TL;DR

This paper investigates how entanglement entropy evolves and scales in the nonperturbative strong-field regime of quantum electrodynamics, revealing a transition from area-law to volume-law behavior due to pair production.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive numerical analysis of entanglement dynamics and geometric scaling in the Sauter-Schwinger effect within strong-field QED.

Findings

Entanglement entropy transitions from area-law to volume-law scaling in strong fields.

Intermediate regimes show a power-law scaling between area- and volume-law.

Insights relate the entanglement behavior to the low-energy pair-creation spectrum.

Abstract

In quantum field theory, entanglement entropy under spatial bipartitioning serves as a powerful information-theoretic probe of quantum correlations. In this work, we present the first comprehensive numerical study of the dynamical evolution and geometric scaling of entanglement entropy in a nonperturbative, strong-field QED setting -- specifically, in the context of the Sauter-Schwinger effect. While the weak-field regime is dominated by area-law states, we show that the entanglement entropy undergoes a transition from area-law to a volume-law scaling for certain strong-field regimes in the pulse-profile parameter space -- signaling a fundamental shift in the underlying correlation structure induced by nonperturbative pair production. For intermediate regimes, the scaling is a power-law that interpolates between area- and volume-law behavior. Finally, we provide interpretations based on the behavior of the low-energy pair-creation spectrum and discuss how these insights could inform future investigations of related phenomena.