Entropy in quantum chromodynamics

Abstract

We review the role of zero-temperature entropy in several closely-related contexts in QCD. The first is entropy associated with disordered condensates, including $<G_{\mu \nu }^2>$. The second is vacuum entropy arising from QCD solitons such as center vortices, yielding confinement and chiral symmetry breaking. The third is entanglement entropy, which is entropy associated with a pure state, such as the QCD vacuum, when the state is partially unobserved and unknown. Typically, entanglement entropy of an unobserved three-volume scales not with the volume but with the area of its bounding surface. The fourth manifestation of entropy in QCD is the configurational entropy of light-particle world-lines and flux tubes; we argue that this entropy is critical for understanding how confinement produces chiral symmetry breakdown, as manifested by a dynamically-massive quark, a massless pion, and a $<\bar{q}q>$ condensate.

22 pages, 2 figures. Preprint version of invited review for Modern Physics Letters A

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