IR dynamics and entanglement entropy

Abstract

We consider scattering of Faddeev-Kulish electrons in QED and study the entanglement between the hard and soft particles in the final state at the perturbative level. The soft photon spectrum naturally splits into two parts: i) soft photons with energies less than a characteristic infrared scale $E_d$ present in the clouds accompanying the asymptotic charged particles, and ii) sufficiently low energy photons with energies greater than $E_d$, comprising the soft part of the emitted radiation. We construct the density matrix associated with tracing over the radiative soft photons and calculate the entanglement entropy perturbatively. We find that the entanglement entropy is free of any infrared divergences order by order in perturbation theory. On the other hand infrared divergences in the perturbative expansion for the entanglement entropy appear upon tracing over the entire spectrum of soft photons, including those in the clouds. To leading order the entanglement entropy is set by the square of the Fock basis amplitude for real single soft photon emission, which leads to a logarithmic infrared divergence when integrated over the photon momentum. We argue that the infrared divergences in the entanglement entropy (per particle flux per unit time) in this latter case persist to all orders in perturbation theory in the infinite volume limit.

33 pages, added references and discussions; accepted in Physical Review D; added clarification, corrected typos

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• Ultralight dark matter or dark radiation cosmologically produced from infrared dressing
• On the infrared divergence and global colour in N=4 Yang-Mills theory
• Threshold and infrared singularities: time evolution, asymptotic state and entanglement entropy
• Subleading soft radiation during scattering of dressed states in QED