Fractional Impurity Entropy from Potential Scattering in a Free Electron Gas

Abstract

Fractional changes in entropy are often associated with strong electron correlations or non-Abelian anyons in topological systems. We show that neither condition is necessary -- a system of free electrons on a ring scattering off a repulsive point-like impurity undergoes a $k_B\ln \sqrt{2}$ entropy change as the impurity strength is increased. This effect arises from a shift of allowed single-particle momenta from integer quantization to half-integer quantization, induced by the impurity. We show that this fractional entropy change is universal across a broad class of single-particle dispersions, demonstrating that such signatures can arise without strong correlations or topological order.

arXiv comment10 pages, 6 figures