Jeudi 08 janvier 2015 à 10h15
Salle 234, Ecole de Physique

Free-fermion entanglement, conformal field theory and random matrices: An overview

Viktor Eisler, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

Entanglement properties of quantum many-body systems have attracted considerable attention in the last decade. A particularly well studied case is a chain of free fermions where one has a very good analytical understanding of the entanglement structure in the ground state. The studies can also be extended to simple out-of-equilibrium situations such as quantum quenches or the time-evolution from a step-initial condition. Interestingly, many of these problems can be formulated within conformal field theory. Moreover, in the course of these investigations several connections to random matrix theory also appear. The purpose of the talk is to give an overview about these relations and to point out how certain aspects of CFT & RMT can give useful input to the studies of free-fermion entanglement.