Universal Finite-Size Corrections of the Entanglement Entropy of Quantum Ladders and the Entropic Area Law

摘要

We investigate the finite-size corrections of the entanglement entropy ofcritical ladders and propose a conjecture for its scaling behavior. Theconjecture is verified for free fermions, Heisenberg and quantum Ising ladders.Our results support that the prefactor of the logarithmic correction of theentanglement entropy of critical ladder models is universal and it isassociated with the central charge of the one-dimensional version of the modelsand with the number of branches associated with gapless excitations. Ourresults suggest that it is possible to infer whether there is a violation ofthe entropic area law in two-dimensional critical systems by analyzing thescaling behavior of the entanglement entropy of ladder systems, which areeasier to deal.