Asymptotic Growth of the Local Ground-State Entropy of the Ideal Fermi Gas in a Constant Magnetic Field

Abstract

AbstractWe consider the ideal Fermi gas of indistinguishable particles without spin but with electric charge, confined to a Euclidean plane $${{\mathbb {R}}}^2$$ R 2 perpendicular to an external constant magnetic field of strength $$B>0$$ B > 0 . We assume this (infinite) quantum gas to be in thermal equilibrium at zero temperature, that is, in its ground state with chemical potential $$\mu \ge B$$ μ ≥ B (in suitable physical units). For this (pure) state we define its local entropy $$S(\Lambda )$$ S ( Λ ) associated with a bounded (sub)region $$\Lambda \subset {{\mathbb {R}}}^2$$ Λ ⊂ R 2 as the von Neumann entropy of the (mixed) local substate obtained by reducing the infinite-area ground state to this region $$\Lambda $$ Λ of finite area $$|\Lambda |$$ | Λ | . In this setting we prove that the leading asymptotic growth of $$S(L\Lambda )$$ S ( L Λ ) , as the dimensionless scaling parameter $$L>0$$ L > 0 tends to infinity, has the form $$L\sqrt{B}|\partial \Lambda |$$ L B | ∂ Λ | up to a precisely given (positive multiplicative) coefficient which is independent of $$\Lambda $$ Λ and dependent on B and $$\mu $$ μ only through the integer part of $$(\mu /B-1)/2$$ ( μ / B - 1 ) / 2 . Here we have assumed the boundary curve $$\partial \Lambda $$ ∂ Λ of $$\Lambda $$ Λ to be sufficiently smooth which, in particular, ensures that its arc length $$|\partial \Lambda |$$ | ∂ Λ | is well-defined. This result is in agreement with a so-called area-law scaling (for two spatial dimensions). It contrasts the zero-field case $$B=0$$ B = 0 , where an additional logarithmic factor $$\ln (L)$$ ln ( L ) is known to be present. We also have a similar result, with a slightly more explicit coefficient, for the simpler situation where the underlying single-particle Hamiltonian, known as the Landau Hamiltonian, is restricted from its natural Hilbert space $$\text{ L}^2({{\mathbb {R}}}^2)$$ L 2 ( R 2 ) to the eigenspace of a single but arbitrary Landau level. Both results extend to the whole one-parameter family of quantum Rényi entropies. As opposed to the case $$B=0$$ B = 0 , the corresponding asymptotic coefficients depend on the Rényi index in a non-trivial way.