- Sponsor
- Physics Department
- Speaker
- Eliana Marroquin (Stony Brook University)
- Contact
- Brandy Koebbe
- bkoebbe@illinois.edu
- Originating Calendar
- Physics - Nuclear Physics Seminar
Title: Thermal nature of confining strings and the Maximal Entanglement Limit”
Abstract:
Thermal features are commonly observed in high-energy processes, even in regimes where conventional equilibration is not expected. The Maximal Entanglement Limit (MEL) program proposes that such behavior can arise from entanglement in isolated quantum systems.
In this talk, I present a concrete realization of these ideas in the massive Schwinger model. We study the confining string connecting a static fermion–antifermion pair by analyzing the reduced density matrix of the region between the charges. As the separation approaches the string-breaking distance, the state of the flux tube becomes well described by an effective thermal density matrix, as quantified by the overlap between the two density matrices.
This behavior is accompanied by a rapid restructuring of the entanglement spectrum, signaling the transition from a nearly pure electric string to a strongly entangled state with virtual fermion–antifermion pairs. These results indicate that thermal behavior can emerge in a subsystem of an isolated quantum system without the presence of an external heat bath, and establish a quantitative connection between confinement, entanglement, and emergent thermality.