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# Non-commutative space-time of Doubly Special Relativity theories

## I Introduction

Most approaches to quantum gravity work in top-to-bottom fashion: one tries to define a more or less complete theory (like strings theory or loop quantum gravity) and then to work out some picture of low energy phenomena that can be in principle confronted with experiment. This procedure is in a sharp contrast with the way the General Theory of Relativity has been first formulated. Einstein started with Special Relativity, and then tried to remove the tension between this theory and the Newtonian theory of gravity. Such a bottom-to-top way is certainly easier because one starts with relatively simple problems, and only after getting some experience the more difficult ones are started being addressed. However, contrary to the situation Einstein was facing at the beginning of XX century, on our way to quantum gravity we are in much more difficult situation having in our disposal virtually no experimental input (see however gacphen  for review of the current status of “Quantum Gravity Phenomenology”.) The development of the top-to-bottom theories provided us however with some rather robust intuitions as to what the starting point of bottom-to-top procedure should be. First of all quantum gravity should certainly describe the flat geometry, i.e., the structure of space-time when gravitational field is switched off. Second, the top-to-bottom approaches seem to indicate the existence of a fundamental scale, which could be identified with Planck scale (of length or mass.) These two observations form the basis for the studies presented in this paper.

About a year ago, in his seminal papers gac1 , gac2 , gacnew  G. Amelino-Camelia made the major breakthrough in the bottom-to-top approach to quantum gravity. He observed that if the Planck scale is treated not as a coupling constant, but as an observer-independent scale, then we immediately find ourselves with direct conflict with basic principles of Special Relativity, which teaches us that masses (and lengths) are not observer-independent. To overcome this difficulty Amelino-Camelia proposed to consider theory with two observer-independent scales, dubbed by him the Doubly Special Relativity (DSR). He also suggested that such a theory may have as an algebra of symmetries some kind of a quantum (Hopf) algebra, which would be an extension of the standard Poincaré algebra. The existence of the second observer-independent scale is in this approach a remnant of Quantum Gravity, and thus Doubly Special Relativity is to be viewed therefore as a Quantum Gravity in flat space-time, or, in other words, Quantum Special Relativity.

It turned out jkgminl , rbgacjkg  that the DSR proposal can be realized in the framework of the quantum $`\kappa `$-Poincaré algebra lunoruto , maru . This algebra contains a natural deformation parameter of dimension of mass $`\kappa `$ by construction (along with the speed of light $`c`$ which we will put here equal $`1`$.) It has been explicitly showed in rbgacjkg  that one of the basic physical prediction of the DSR theory with $`\kappa `$-Poincaré algebra playing the role of an algebra of symmetries is the existence of the fundamental mass scale, which is observer-independent.

The quantum $`\kappa `$-Poincaré algebra is in the same relation to DSR theory as the standard Poincaré algebra is related to Special Relativity. In other words DSR is a physical theory in which the description of energy-momentum sector is provided by $`\kappa `$-Poincaré quantum algebra. However the knowledge of this algebra is only the first step in construction of the DSR theory. The reason is at least twofold.

First of all the $`\kappa `$-Poincaré algebra is a quantum nonlinear algebra, and thus, contrary to the standard Poincaré case there are no restrictions on nonlinear transformations among momenta. This means that from the mathematical point of view different bases of the algebra related by arbitrary (analytical) transformations of momenta are completely equivalent. Up to date four such bases have been investigated in details: the “standard” basis with deformed Lorentz sector lunoruto , the bicrossproduct basis maru , the classical basis kolumaso , and recently a new basis proposed by Magueijo and Smolin JoaoLee , juse . It is therefore an open question whether these mathematically equivalent bases are equivalent physically, or if one of them is singled out by some physical considerations.

Secondly, the $`\kappa `$-Poincaré quantum algebra is an algebra describing in a direct way only the energy-momentum sector of the DSR theory. The knowledge of this sector alone is insufficient to consider many physical problems. Moreover, as argued in lunoDSR  if one sticks only to the energy-momentum sector, the resulting theory is based on a brute force, unjustified deformation of the standard Poincaré algebra and thus not very appealing. It is the co-algebra of the quantum algebra that provides a way out of this dilemma. Indeed, as we show below the co-algebra can be used to derive the form of the commutator algebra on the whole of the phase space. The $`\kappa `$-deformed phase space has been first obtained in crossalg , luno , lukps  for bicrossproduct basis. This result was extended in juse  for other bases. However the emerging picture of the phase space was still unclear. Here we want to investigate the properties of this space in more details. In particular, we will address the question which of these properties are universal, independent of the energy-momentum basis one starts with, and which are not. If indeed all the bases are physically equivalent only the former may correspond to physical “observables”.

The plan of this paper is as follows. In sections II and III we show that under rather mild assumption an arbitrary energy-momentum algebra forms, along with the undeformed Lorentz algebra a Hopf algebra. This is a very promising result, since the Hopf algebra structure makes it possible to extend the energy-momentum algebra to the algebra of space-time. This extension turns out to have a remarkable property, namely that the form of space-time non-commutativity is independent of the energy-momentum basis one starts with. This result is proved in section III. Next, in section IV we show that also the way how positions transform under action of Lorentz generators is energy-momentum basis independent. Thus the space-time sector of DSR is perfectly unambiguous, and can therefore serve as a basis to construct a physical theory. Moreover, it turns out that the resulting theory is exactly the one proposed in the paper of Snyder snyder , in which the idea of space-time non-commutativity was spelled out for the first time. The natural phase-space algebra associated with Snyder’s non-commutative Minkowski space-time is presented in section VI. Section VII is defoted to conclusions and outlooks.

## II Three bases of $`\kappa `$-Poincaré quantum algebra

In this section we present general results describing some algebras furnishing the energy-momentum sector of DSR theory. Our aim here is twofold: first we present concrete examples, of which we will make use in the following sections, and second we prove statements concerning the general nature of $`\kappa `$-Poincaré quantum algebras, and therefore applicable to any DSR theory.

The $`\kappa `$-Poincaré quantum algebra is a quantum (Hopf) algebra being a deformation of the Poincaré algebra of special relativity. This algebra has been proposed first in the paper lunoruto  (see also rurev  for early review). However the algebra presented there has been written in the so-called standard basis, which does not satisfy the natural requirement that the action of the Lorentz sector integrates to a group. Only few years later in the paper maru  the bicrossproduct basis was introduced in which the Lorentz sector was undeformed. Therefore, to distinguish these two cases we introduce the notion of $`\kappa `$-DSR algebra which is an $`\kappa `$-deformed Heisenberg algebra on the phase space of the system with the basis satisfying

1. the Lorentz sector of this algebra is undeformed,
2. the action of rotations on momenta is classical111Let us note that the deformation can be associated only with one dimension and it follows from the requirement of rotational symmetry that we choose this direction to be timelike. One should remember however that there exists a different $`\kappa `$-Poincaré theory in which one deforms the algebra along null direction.,
3. the space-time commutators and the ones between positions and momenta are uniquely defined by the co-product and appropriate pairing (see below), and
4. in the limit when the deformation parameter $`\kappa \mathrm{}`$ the algebra becomes the classical phase space algebra, i.e, the Poincaré algebra along with the standard canonical commutational relations between positions and momenta (with the trivial co-algebra sector).

To date three examples (or, better to say, bases) of $`\kappa `$-DSR algebra have been analyzed, and for all of them, according to postulates (a) and (b):

$$[M_i,M_j]=iϵ_{ijk}M_k,[M_i,N_j]=iϵ_{ijk}N_k,$$

$$[N_i,N_j]=iϵ_{ijk}M_k.$$
(1)
and

$$[M_i,p_j]=iϵ_{ijk}p_k,[M_i,p_0]=0$$
(2)
hold.

1. $`\kappa `$-Poincaré algebra in the bicrossproduct basis.

The algebra sector reads

$$[N_i,p_j]=i\delta _{ij}(\frac{\kappa }{2}(1e^{2p_0/\kappa })+\frac{1}{2\kappa }\stackrel{}{p}{}_{}{}^{2})i\frac{1}{\kappa }p_ip_j,$$
(3)
and

$$[N_i,p_0]=ip_i.$$
(4)
with the first Casimir equal

$$m^2=\left(2\kappa \mathrm{sinh}\left(\frac{p_0}{2\kappa }\right)\right)^2\stackrel{}{p}{}_{}{}^{2}e_{}^{p_0/\kappa }.$$
(5)
It should be noted in passing the the parameter $`m`$ above is not the physical mass222The physical mass is defined by equation $`\frac{1}{m_{phys}}=lim_{p0}\frac{1}{p}\frac{dp_0}{dp}`$, $`p=|\stackrel{}{p}|`$. , in fact, as shown in juse  the correct expression for physical mass has the form

$$m_{phys}^2=\frac{\kappa ^2}{4}\left(1\left(\frac{m}{2\kappa }+\sqrt{\frac{m^2}{4\kappa ^2}+1}\right)^4\right)^2.$$

Let us now turn to the co-algebra sector of the $`\kappa `$-Poincaré algebra. For our present purposes it would be only necessary to know the co-product for the momentum sector. One has

$`\mathrm{\Delta }(p_i)=p_i1\mathrm{l}+e^{p_0/\kappa }p_i,`$ (6)
(7)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }(p_0)=p_01\mathrm{l}+1\mathrm{l}p_0,`$ (8)
It is worth noticing that the bicrossproduct basis is singled out by the condition that the energy $`p_0`$ co-commutes.

The co-product is of crucial physical importance, because it makes it possible to construct the space-time sector and the phase space of the theory by a step-by-step procedure. Putting it another way, any construction of the space-time sector is in a sense equivalent to definition of some energy-momentum co-product, and only the one described by eq. (8) has the virtue that together with the commutational relations (14) it furnishes a Hopf algebra. It should be stressed at this point that had we not have this structure in our possession, we would not be able to go beyond the energy-momentum sector.

The general procedure of construction of the space-time commutator algebra from energy-momentum co-algebra consists of the following steps maru , crossalg :

1. One defines the bracket (pairing) $`<,>`$ between momentum variables $`p,q`$ and position variables $`x,y`$ in a natural way as follows

$$<p_\mu ,x_\nu >=i\eta _{\mu \nu },\eta _{\mu \nu }=\text{diag}(1,1,1,1).$$
(9)
2. This bracket is to be consistent with the co-product structure in the following sense

$$
=<p_{(1)},x><p_{(2)},y>,$$

$$<pq,x>=
<q_{(2)},x_{(2)}>,$$
(10)
where we use the natural notation for the co-product

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t=t_{(1)}t_{(2)}.$$

Note that by definition

$$<1\mathrm{l},1\mathrm{l}>=1.$$

One sees immediately that the fact that momenta commute translates to the fact that positions co-commute

$$\mathrm{\Delta }x_\mu =1\mathrm{l}x_\mu +x_\mu 1\mathrm{l}.$$
(11)
Then the first equation in (10) along with (9) can be used to deduce the form of the space-time commutators.
3. It remains only to derive the commutators (cross relations) between momenta and positions. These can be found from the definition of the so-called Heisenberg double (see crossalg ) and read

$$[p,x]=x_{(1)}<p_{(1)},x_{(2)}>p_{(2)}xp$$
(12)
where $`xp`$ above is standard multiplication.

As an example let us apply this procedure in the case of the bicrossproduct basis maru , crossalg , luno . It follows from (10) that

$$<p_i,x_0x_j>=\frac{1}{\kappa }\delta _{ij},<p_i,x_jx_0>=0,$$

from which one gets

$$[x_0,x_i]=\frac{i}{\kappa }x_i.$$
(13)
Using (12) we get the standard relations

$$[p_0,x_0]=i,[p_i,x_j]=i\delta _{ij}.$$
(14)
However it turns out that this algebra contains one more non-vanishing commutator, namely

$$[p_i,x_0]=\frac{i}{\kappa }p_i.$$
(15)
Of course, the algebra (1315) satisfies the Jacobi identity.

2. Magueijo–Smolin basis

In the recent paper JoaoLee  Magueijo and Smolin proposed another DSR theory, whose boost generators were constructed as a linear combination of the standard Lorentz generators and the generator of dilatation (but in such a way that the algebra (1) holds.) In this basis the commutators of four-momenta $`P_\mu `$ and boosts have the following form

$$[N_i,P_j]=i\left(\delta _{ij}P_0\frac{1}{\kappa }P_iP_j\right),$$
(16)
and

$$[N_i,P_0]=i\left(1\frac{P_0}{\kappa }\right)P_i.$$
(17)
It is easy to check that the Casimir for this algebra has the form

$$M^2=\frac{P_0^2\stackrel{}{P}^2}{\left(1\frac{P_0}{\kappa }\right)^2},$$
(18)
and that $`M`$ above is the physical mass.

One easily checks that the relation between variables $`P_\mu `$ and $`p_\mu `$ of bicrossproduct basis is given by

$$p_i=P_i$$
(19)
$$p_0=\frac{\kappa }{2}\mathrm{log}\left(1\frac{2P_0}{\kappa }+\frac{\stackrel{}{P}^2}{\kappa ^2}\right),$$

$$P_0=\frac{\kappa }{2}\left(1e^{2p_0/\kappa }+\frac{\stackrel{}{p}^2}{\kappa ^2}\right).$$
(20)
Using formulas above one can without difficulty promote this algebra to the quantum algebra. This amounts only in using the homomorphisms (19), (20) to define the new co-products. They read

$$\mathrm{}(P_i)=P_i1+\left(1\frac{2P_0}{\kappa }+\frac{\stackrel{}{P}^2}{\kappa ^2}\right)^{1/2}P_i$$
(21)
$$\mathrm{}(P_0)=P_01+1P_0\frac{2}{\kappa }P_0P_0+\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}\stackrel{}{P}^2P_0+$$

$$+\frac{1}{\kappa }\left(1\frac{2P_0}{\kappa }+\frac{\stackrel{}{P}^2}{\kappa ^2}\right)^{1/2}P_iP_i$$
(22)
To find the non-commutative structure of space time in Magueijo–Smolin basis we start again with eq. (9)

$$<P_\mu ,X_\nu >=i\eta _{\mu \nu }.$$

Let us now turn to the next step, eq. (10). It is easy to see that the only terms in (21), 22), which are relevant for our computations are the bilinear ones, so we can write

$$\mathrm{}(P_i)=1\mathrm{l}P_i+P_i1\mathrm{l}\frac{1}{\kappa }P_0P_i+\mathrm{}$$

$$\mathrm{}(P_0)=1\mathrm{l}P_0+P_01\mathrm{l}\frac{2}{\kappa }P_0P_0+\frac{1}{\kappa }P_iP_i+\mathrm{}$$

It follows immediately that the only non-vanishing commutators in the position sector are

$$[X_0,X_i]=\frac{i}{\kappa }X_i.$$
(23)
Now we can use eq. (12) to derive the form of the remaining commutators. Since this computation is a bit tricky, let us present the necessary steps.

$$[P_0,X_i]=\underset{j}{}\frac{1}{\kappa }\sqrt{1\frac{2P_0}{\kappa }+\frac{\stackrel{}{P}^2}{\kappa ^2}}P_j,X_iP_j+$$

$$+X_i<1\mathrm{l},1\mathrm{l}>P_0X_iP_0=$$

$$=\frac{1}{\kappa }\underset{j}{}<P_j,X_i>P_j$$

(we made use of the fact that the only terms linear in momenta have non-vanishing bracket with positions) from which it follows immediately that

$$[P_0,X_i]=\frac{i}{\kappa }P_i$$
(24)
and by employing the same procedure we obtain the remaining commutators

$$[P_0,X_0]=i\left(1\frac{2P_0}{\kappa }\right)$$
(25)
$$[P_i,X_j]=i\delta _{ij}$$
(26)
$$[P_i,X_0]=\frac{i}{\kappa }P_i.$$
(27)
Of course, as it is easy to check, the algebra above satisfies the Jacobi identity.

Let us note in passing an interesting property of the commutator (25) namely that for states with energy $`\kappa /2`$ $`P_0`$ and $`X_0`$ commute. However since it is our view that one should not treat any particular energy-momentum algebra as a physical one unless there are appealing physical arguments to think otherwise, we will not dwell on this observation.

3. The classical basis

There is yet another basis which we will present here for comparison (this basis was first described in maslanka ; see also kolumaso , lukclas , luruza .) In this basis, which we call the classical one, the boosts–momenta commutators together with the Lorentz sector form the classical Poincaré algebra, to wit

$$[N_i,𝒫_j]=i\delta _{ij}𝒫_0,[N_i,𝒫_0]=i𝒫_i.$$
(28)
The Casimir for this basis equals, of course the one of special relativity, to wit

$$^2=𝒫_0^2\stackrel{}{𝒫}^2$$
(29)
The classical generators $`𝒫_\mu `$ are related to the bicrossproduct basis generators by the formulas

$$𝒫_0=\kappa \mathrm{sinh}\frac{p_0}{\kappa }+e^{p_0/\kappa }\frac{\stackrel{}{p}^2}{2\kappa },$$
(30)
$$𝒫_i=e^{p_0/\kappa }p_i$$
(31)
and one can easily compute the expression for co-product

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(𝒫_0)=\frac{\kappa }{2}\left(KKK^1K^1\right)+$$

$$+\frac{1}{2\kappa }(K^1\stackrel{}{𝒫}{}_{}{}^{2}K+2K^1𝒫_i𝒫_i+K^1K^1\stackrel{}{𝒫}{}_{}{}^{2}),$$
(32)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }(𝒫_i)=𝒫_iK+1\mathrm{l}𝒫_i$$
(33)
where

$$K=e^{p_0/\kappa }=\frac{1}{\kappa }[𝒫_0+(𝒫_0^2\stackrel{}{𝒫}{}_{}{}^{2}+\kappa ^2)^{1/2}].$$

To derive the phase space commutators, we again start with the duality relation

$$<𝒫_\mu ,𝒳_\nu >=i\eta _{\mu \nu },$$

and to get the commutators in the position sector as above we take the part of the co-product up to the bilinear terms

$$\mathrm{}(𝒫_i)=1\mathrm{l}𝒫_i+𝒫_i1\mathrm{l}+\frac{1}{\kappa }𝒫_i𝒫_0+\mathrm{}$$
(34)
$$\mathrm{}(𝒫_0)=1\mathrm{l}𝒫_0+𝒫_01\mathrm{l}+\frac{1}{\kappa }𝒫_i𝒫_i+\mathrm{}$$
(35)
which leads again to

$$[𝒳_0,𝒳_i]=\frac{i}{\kappa }𝒳_i.$$
(36)
Then by employing the same method as in the preceding subsection we find the space-time commutators

$$[𝒫_0,𝒳_0]=\frac{i}{2}\left(K+K^1\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}\stackrel{}{𝒫}{}_{}{}^{2}K_{}^{1}\right)$$
(37)
$$[𝒫_0,𝒳_i]=\frac{i}{\kappa }𝒫_i$$
(38)
$$[𝒫_i,𝒳_j]=iK\delta _{ij}$$
(39)
$$[𝒫_i,𝒳_0]=0.$$
(40)
From these three examples of $`\kappa `$-DSR algebras, we see that the number of different algebras of this type is unlimited. Even worse, if we are to treat them seriously, we see that they differ by fundamental physical predictions like the existence of maximal momentum and/or energy, the form of dispersion relation etc. They share however, quite unexpectedly, one feature, namely the form of space-time non-commutativity. Keeping this in mind, let us now turn to considerations of more general character.

## III General $`\kappa `$-DSR algebra

Consider a generic algebra satisfying the conditions (a)–(d) above. The Lorentz sector of such algebra is given by eq. (1). The most general expression for commutators of boosts and momenta, compatible with rotational symmetry takes the form

$$[N_i,p_j]=\delta _{ij}A+p_ip_jB+ϵ_{ijk}p_kD,$$
(41)
$$[N_i,p_0]=Cp_i,$$
(42)
where $`A,B,C,D`$ are functions of $`p_0`$ and $`\stackrel{}{p}^2`$ only and in the limit $`\kappa \mathrm{}`$, $`A`$ and $`C`$ go to $`1`$ and $`B`$ and $`D`$ go to $`0`$. One easily sees that the Jacobi identity for the commutator (42) forces the function $`D=0`$, and the one for (41) gives the following condition for the remaining three functions

$$\frac{A}{p_0}C+2\frac{A}{\stackrel{}{p}^2}\left(A+\stackrel{}{p}{}_{}{}^{2}B\right)AB=1.$$
(43)
This condition can be solved for example for $`B`$ and we see that only two of the functions $`A`$, $`B`$, $`C`$ are independent. Recalling now that the most general transformation from the classical basis to another one satisfying the condition of rotational covariance has the form

$$p_i=\alpha (𝒫_0,\stackrel{}{𝒫}{}_{}{}^{2})𝒫_i,p_0=\beta (𝒫_0,\stackrel{}{𝒫}{}_{}{}^{2}),$$
(44)
and is defined by two arbitrary functions $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$, and that, after substituting to eqs. (28) one obtains equations of the form (41), (42), we see that any DSR basis can be obtained from the classical basis in this way.

One should remember however that the functions $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ are not completely arbitrary. The important physical requirement is that any basis has the standard Poincaré algebra as its limit at $`\kappa \mathrm{}`$. This means that, for large $`\kappa `$ we have

$$\alpha (𝒫_0,\stackrel{}{𝒫}{}_{}{}^{2})1+a\frac{𝒫_0}{\kappa }+O\left(\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}\right),$$

$$\beta (𝒫_0,\stackrel{}{𝒫}{}_{}{}^{2})𝒫_0(1+b\frac{𝒫_0}{\kappa }+O\left(\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}\right)),$$
(45)
where $`a`$, $`b`$ are numerical parameters, from which it follows that

$$𝒫_i\left(1a\frac{p_0}{\kappa }+O\left(\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}\right)\right)p_i,$$

$$𝒫_0\left(1b\frac{p_0}{\kappa }+O\left(\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}\right)\right)p_0.$$
(46)
This observation has important consequences. To see why, let us consider the commutator $`[x_0,x_i]`$ in the basis defined by eqs. (44). The first step is to find the form of the co-product for $`p_i`$, $`p_0`$ in the new basis. Using eqs. (34), (35), and (46) we have

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(p_i)=1\mathrm{l}p_i+p_i1\mathrm{l}+\frac{a}{\kappa }p_0p_i+\frac{1+a}{\kappa }p_ip_0+\mathrm{}$$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(p_0)=1\mathrm{l}p_0+p_01\mathrm{l}+\frac{1}{\kappa }p_ip_i+\mathrm{}$$

where $`\mathrm{}`$ denote terms that do not contribute to the commutator. Following our prescription of the preceding section we find that

$$<p_i,x_0x_j>=\frac{a}{\kappa }\delta _{ij},<p_i,x_jx_0>=\frac{1+a}{\kappa }\delta _{ij},$$

from which one gets

$$[x_0,x_i]=\frac{i}{\kappa }x_i.$$
(47)
This shows that the form of space–time non-commutativity is a basis-independent property of any $`\kappa `$-DSR algebra.

## IV Space-time Lorentz transformations

Having obtained the general form of $`\kappa `$-DSR algebra, let us turn to the next problem. In this section we derive the transformation laws that govern the action of boosts on space-time variables. There are two equivalent ways to find this. One can make use of the Jacobi identity for the algebra consisting of Lorentz generators, commutators of boosts with momenta and the phase space algebra to derive the commutators $`[N_i,x_\mu ]`$. In other words one assumes that the phase space commutators transform covariantly under boosts. There is another way to get the same result, however. To do that one takes the co-product for boosts and proceeds following exactly the same steps as the ones that led us to phase space algebra. In this way the Jacobi identity for the whole of the algebra (including the commutators of boosts with space time variables) is guaranteed by construction.

Let us start with co-product for the boosts in the bicrossproduct basis

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(N_i)=N_i1\mathrm{l}+e^{p_0/\kappa }N_i+\frac{1}{\kappa }ϵ_{ijk}p_jM_k$$
(48)
along with the natural definition for pairing

$$<N_i,x_j>=i\delta _{ij}x_0,<N_i,x_0>=ix_i.$$
(49)
Then, after simple computations, which follow the steps leading to eq. (14), (15) we get luno , lukps

$$[N_i,x_j]=i\delta _{ij}x_0\frac{i}{\kappa }ϵ_{ijk}M_k,[N_i,x_0]=ix_i\frac{i}{\kappa }N_i.$$
(50)
One can easily check that this algebra together with (16), (17), (13 \- 15) satisfies Jacobi identity. One can write the commutators (50) in a slightly more convenient way by using the following representation for rotation and boost generators

$$M_i=ϵ_{ijk}x_jp_k,N_i=x_i\left(\frac{\kappa }{2}\left(1e^{2p_0/\kappa }\right)+\frac{\stackrel{}{p}^2}{2\kappa }\right)x_0p_i,$$

to get

$$[N_i,x_j]=i\delta _{ij}x_0\frac{i}{\kappa }x_ip_j+\frac{i}{\kappa }x_jp_i,$$

$$[N_i,x_0]=ix_i\left(\frac{1}{2}\left(1+e^{2p_0/\kappa }\right)\frac{\stackrel{}{p}^2}{2\kappa ^2}\right)+\frac{i}{\kappa }x_0p_i.$$
(51)
It is easy to see that the expression (50) is basis independent. To check this, consider any basis $`(P_0,P_i,X_0,X_i)`$ related to the bicrossproduct one by

$$p_i=\alpha (P_0,\stackrel{}{P}{}_{}{}^{2})P_i,p_0=\beta (P_0,\stackrel{}{P}{}_{}{}^{2}),$$

where the functions $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ again have the expansion

$$\alpha (P_0,\stackrel{}{P}{}_{}{}^{2})1+a\frac{P_0}{\kappa }+O\left(\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}\right),$$

$$\beta (P_0,\stackrel{}{P}{}_{}{}^{2})P_0(1+b\frac{P_0}{\kappa }+O\left(\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}\right)).$$
(52)
Taking now the pairing as above,

$$<N_i,X_j>=i\delta _{ij}X_0,<N_i,X_0>=iX_i,$$

$$<P_\mu ,X_\nu >=i\eta _{\mu \nu },$$

we get

$$[N_i,X_j]=$$

$$1\mathrm{l}<N_i,X_j>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\mathrm{l}+\frac{1}{\kappa }ϵ_{ikl}<\alpha (P_0,\stackrel{}{P}{}_{}{}^{2})P_k,X_j>M_l=$$

$$=i\delta _{ij}X_0\frac{i}{\kappa }ϵ_{ijk}M_k.$$
(53)
Similarly

$$[N_i,X_0]=1\mathrm{l}<N_i,X_0>\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}\mathrm{l}+1\mathrm{l}<e^{\beta (P_0,\stackrel{}{P}{}_{}{}^{2})/\kappa },X_0>N_i=$$

$$=iX_i\frac{i}{\kappa }N_i.$$
(54)
Let us note that by using an appropriate form of $`M_i`$, $`N_i`$ generators expressed in terms of $`X_\mu `$, $`P_\mu `$ one can obtain the result similar to (51) in any basis.

The next natural question to be asked is what is a natural form, which replaces the Minkowski metric. To find it let us observe that by replacing $`X_i`$ with

$$\stackrel{~}{X}_i=X_i\frac{1}{\kappa }N_i,$$
(55)
the algebra (53), (54) takes the simple form

$$[N_i,\stackrel{~}{X}_j]=iX_0,[N_i,X_0]=i\stackrel{~}{X}_j,$$
(56)
from which it follows that the invariant quadratic form is

$$X_0^2\stackrel{~}{X}_i\stackrel{~}{X}_i=X_0^2\left(X_i\frac{1}{\kappa }N_i\right)\left(X_i\frac{1}{\kappa }N_i\right).$$
(57)
This quadratic form is again universal, and invariant for any basis.

## V Intermezzo: So where are we?

Let us pause for a moment to summarize what we have achieved so far. We started from a list of energy-momentum quantum algebras and by making use of their co-product structure we derived the basis-independent space-time commutators. By using the same method we found that the form of commutator of boosts with positions is also basis-independent. This means that the whole space-time sector of $`\kappa `$-DSR is unambiguous. Instead of using the $`X_i`$ position variables following from the Heisenberg double procedure luno , lukps , we find it more convenient to use the combination $`\stackrel{~}{X}_i`$ defined by (55). In terms of these variables space-time of DSR is described by the following commutators (because we are now in the space-time sector, it is reasonable to replace the deformation parameter $`\kappa `$ with the parameter $`\mathrm{}`$ of dimension of length.)

$$[M_i,M_j]=iϵ_{ijk}M_k,[M_i,N_j]=iϵ_{ijk}N_k,$$

$$[N_i,N_j]=iϵ_{ijk}M_k.$$
(58)
$$[X_0,\stackrel{~}{X}_i]=i\mathrm{}^2N_i,[\stackrel{~}{X}_i,\stackrel{~}{X}_j]=i\mathrm{}^2ϵ_{ijk}M_k.$$
(59)
$$[N_i,\stackrel{~}{X}_j]=iX_0,[N_i,X_0]=i\stackrel{~}{X}_j,$$
(60)
$$[M_i,\stackrel{~}{X}_j]=iϵ_{ijk}\stackrel{~}{X}_k,[M_i,X_0]=0,$$
(61)
It is a remarkable fact that this algebra provides the description of non-commutative Minkowski space (cf., the invariant element (57)) enjoying ordinary Lorentz symmetry, and is identical with the algebra postulated by Snyder in his seminal paper snyder , where the idea of space-time non-commutativity was contemplated for the first time. From our perspective this algebra is exactly the universal basis of the Doubly Special Relativity theory, we have been looking for, and thus this is the algebra (5861) which is to be taken as a starting point in construction of the DSR theory and analysis of its physical predictions. Specifically, this algebra furnishes the structure of configuration space of the DSR and thus can be used to construct the second order particle lagrangian. This in turn will make it possible to define physical four-momenta defined by particle dynamics and not the formal algebraic manipulations. However, it is still of interest to investigate the natural phase space basis associated with the space-time algebra above.

## VI The Snyder’s basis

Promoting (5860) to the universal space-time algebra brings the problem of construction of Doubly Special Relativity into completely new perspective. In short we would like to find a representation of this algebra on the space of functions of four commuting variables, which can be identified with components of momenta. There are, of course many such representations, which correspond to different energy momentum bases discussed above. However there is clearly the most natural basis, namely the one considered by Snyder. In this basis the Lorentz generators are given by classical formulas, to wit

$$M_i=ϵ_{ijk}\stackrel{~}{X}_jP_k,N_i=\left(\stackrel{~}{X}_iP_0X_0P_i\right)$$
(62)
from which one can derive the form of the commutators $`[P_\mu ,X_\nu ]`$ as follows.

$$[P_i,\stackrel{~}{X}_j]=i\delta _{ij}i\mathrm{}^2P_iP_j,$$
(63)
$$[P_0,X_0]=i\left(1\mathrm{}^2P_0^2\right),$$
(64)
$$[P_i,X_0]=[\stackrel{~}{X}_i,P_0]=i\mathrm{}^2P_iP_0.$$
(65)
It can be easily checked that the variables $`P_\mu `$ transform under rotations and boosts in a classical way, to wit

$$[M_i,P_j]=iϵ_{ijk}P_k,[M_i,P_0]=0,$$
(66)
$$[N_i,P_j]=i\delta _{ij}P_0,[N_i,P_0]=iP_i.$$
(67)
Thus the Snyder’s basis is a different, and certainly more convenient realization of a basis with classical energy-momentum algebra. Indeed, returning to the generators $`X_i=\stackrel{~}{X}_i+\mathrm{}N_i`$ we find the relations

$$[P_i,X_j]=i\delta _{ij}\left(1+\mathrm{}P_0\right)i\mathrm{}^2P_iP_j,$$
(68)
$$[X_i,P_0]=i\mathrm{}P_i+i\mathrm{}^2P_iP_0,$$
(69)
as compared with the non-polynomial relations (3740). Of course, one can work out the co-product structure for the algebra (66), (67) resulting in relations (68), (69)

It is a remarkable fact that the algebra (63) once reduced to one space dimension is exactly the one considered by many as an example of deformed commutational relations leading to generalized uncertainty relations indicating existence of the minimal length. The detailed discussion of quantum mechanical structure underlying this uncertainty relation can be found in kmm  and we will not repeat it here. One should note however that the extension to three dimension presented in this paper differs from ours.

We see therefore that the algebra (6265) predicts the existence of minimal length equal $`\mathrm{}`$. The question arises as to if this minimal length is observer-independent, as required by DSR (the speed o light is of course observer-independent because the dispersion relation is classical.) By this we mean the following. Suppose we have two inertial observers attempting do find out what is their value of the minimal length associated with their generalized uncertainty relation. For both of them this minimal length is associated with the value of the parameter $`\mathrm{}`$ in their commutational relations. The statement that the minimal length is observer-independent is equivalent therefore with the statement that the parameter $`\mathrm{}`$ is the same in any inertial frame. To see that this is indeed the case let us consider the infinitesimal boosts parameterized by parameter $`\epsilon ^k`$

$$\stackrel{~}{X}_i^{}=\stackrel{~}{X}_i+\frac{1}{i}\epsilon ^k[N_k,\stackrel{~}{X}_i],P_i^{}=P_i+\frac{1}{i}\epsilon ^k[N_k,P_i]$$

and consider the commutator $`[P_i^{},\stackrel{~}{X}_j^{}]`$ to order $`\epsilon `$. One can easily check that to this order

$$[P_i^{},\stackrel{~}{X}_j^{}]=i\delta _{ij}i\mathrm{}^2P_i^{}P_j^{},$$
(70)
which is the desired result. It should be stressed that to get this result one should make use of eq. (65) in a nontrivial way.

## VII Conclusions and outlook

Let us conclude this paper with an outline of the logic of derivations presented above. We started with a simple observation that if one wants to base the DSR theory on the energy-momentum sector, one encounters immediately the problem as to which of mathematically equivalent bases of $`\kappa `$-Poincaré algebra should be taken as a starting point. There are clearly two possibilities: either one of the bases is distinguished or one should look for some basis independent elements of the DSR theory. The next observation is that the sole energy-momentum sector is insufficient to construct a physical theory; one needs the whole phase space.

At this point the quantum structure of $`\kappa `$-Poincaré algebra turns out to be crucial. It is only for existence of co-product that one can construct the space-time sector is an unambiguous way. It should be stressed at this point that this provides the physical interpretation of co-product in the case of algebra of space-time symmetries. Thus the co-product of momenta is the tool enabling the construction of space-time.

Having constructed the phase space, we observe that the structure of space-time sector, i.e., the space-time non-commutativity as well as the action of boosts and rotations on space-time variables is actually completely independent of the energy-momentum basis we started with. We have therefore a non-commutative space-time, which might be, like space-time of Special Relativity, an arena for physical phenomena. It seems reasonable to take this space-time structure as a starting point of investigation of the DSR theory. One should stress at this point that the uniqueness is not the only virtue of the space-time algebra derived in this paper. First of all, when the space-time non-commutativity is expressed in terms of variables $`\stackrel{~}{X}_i`$ on obtains the algebra (59) being the simplest possible extension of the non-commutative algebra motivated by string theory (for recent review see douglasnekrasov )

$$[X_\mu ,X_\nu ]=i\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu },$$
(71)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{\mu \nu }`$ is central element, which (contrary to (71)) manifestly preserves Lorentz invariance. Second if following Snyder snyder  one takes a natural representation of the space-time algebra one discovers the natural appearance of observer-independent length scale $`\mathrm{}`$. At this point we would decline from any strong statement as to if this particular phase space basis is physical , i.e., if the variables $`P_\mu `$ of Snyder’s basis are to be identified with physical momenta, though certainly this basis looks very promising in this respect. Third the construction presented above provides a non-commutative Minkowski space with undeformed Lorentz symmetry.

There is of course a lot of open problems and possible areas of future research. It seems to us that the most urgent one is to try to construct a natural particle dynamics on non-commutative space-time. This would enable one to identify physical momentum associated with particle motion. Another approach to the same problem would be to formulate a field theory on our non-commutative space-time along the lines proposed long ago in snyder2 . Quantization of such theory would also most likely make it possible to find out what the physical momentum is. Last but not least the fact that along with a unique space-time we seem to have plethora of energy-momentum spaces certainly requires explanation.

## Acknowledgement

We would like to thank J. Lukierski for discussions and comments on early version of the manuscript.


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# Quantum Entanglement in Second-quantized Condensed Matter Systems

## 1. Introduction

Quantum entanglement is the situation that a quantum state of a composite system is not a direct product of states of the subsystems einstein . It is an essential quantum feature without classical analogy bell ; mermin . For many decades, the notion of entanglement has been mostly used in foundations of quantum mechanics. Recently it was found to be crucial in quantum information processing. For a bipartite pure state $`|\psi _{AB}`$, the entanglement can be quantified as the von Neumann entropy of the reduced density matrix of either party, $`S=tr_A\rho _A\mathrm{ln}\rho _A=tr_B\rho _B\mathrm{ln}\rho _B`$, where $`\rho _A=tr_B(|\psi _{AB}\psi _{AB}|)`$, $`\rho _B=tr_A(|\psi _{AB}\psi _{AB}|)`$ bennett . Thus $`0S\mathrm{ln}D`$, where $`D`$ is the smaller one of the dimensions of the Hilbert spaces of $`A`$ and $`B`$. The larger $`S`$, the stronger the entanglement. Recall that the von Neumann entropy of a density matrix is a measure of the distribution of its eigenvalues; the more homogeneous this distribution, the larger the von Neumann entropy.

Since quantum entanglement is an essential quantum correlation, it is natural and interesting to consider useful or even fundamental insights that the notion of entanglement may provide on quantum many-body physics and quantum field theory. Historically, similar consideration was made in Yang’s study of off-diagonal long-range order yang  and in Leggett’s study of disconnectivity leg . The recent development of quantum information theory may be useful to some important issues in frontiers of physics preskill . Some investigations have been made on entanglement between spins at different sites in some spin lattice models hei1 ; thermal ; osterloh ; osborn ; vidal ; korepin1 ; korepin2 . Nevertheless, the bulk of quantum many-body physics concerns identical particles, with the localized spin models as special cases. Hence in this regard, it is inevitable to address the issue of entanglement in systems of identical particles. This topic, related to both quantum information and condensed matter physics, is pursued in various approaches abrams ; lloyd1 ; lloyd2 ; bravyi ; mn ; terhal ; zanardi1 ; zanardi0 ; shi4 ; shi0 ; dis ; enk ; vedral1 ; ghirardi ; knill ; schliemann .

As the quantum correlation beyond the symmetrization or anti-symmetrization of identical particles, entanglement between occupation numbers of different single particle basis states (modes) is an appropriate characterization. Lloyd and coworkers when recognized the occupation number basis as the suitable basis for quantum simulation of second quantized many-particle systems, exemplified by using the Hubbard model abrams . Furthermore, occupation was also proposed as the degree of freedom to implement qubit lloyd1 ; lloyd2 ; bravyi ; mn ; terhal . Zanardi noted the isomorphism between the full Fock space and qubits space and investigated the entanglement in grand canonical ensembles zanardi1 . Afterwards, from a physical standpoint and the relation between occupation number state and the (anti)symmetrized particle state, the present author carefully justified the use of Fock space in investigating entanglement issue, even in the case of particle number conservation, thus helped to establish the applicability of this approach to many-particle pure states shi4 ; shi0 . It is also noted that the magnetic spin entanglement is a special case of occupation-number entanglement of identical particles shi4 . Some related papers have appeared after the present work was actually done shi0 . Vedral made some very interesting investigations, where the application of two-mode squeezing to Bose condensates and related systems were analyzed, and two-particle fermionic entanglement due to symmetrization were computed vedral1 .

In this approach, clearly the entanglement in the many-particle system depends on which single particle basis is chosen. This point might seem uncomfortable to some researchers, since they remember that entanglement should not be affected by local operations. Let us emphasize that the subsystems are defined by modes, not by particles. The choice of single particle basis defines how to partition the system into subsystems, and actually defines the single particles zeh . Once the single particle basis is chosen, i.e. the partition into subsystems is defined, the entanglement is invariant under unitary operations on individual subsystems, i.e. the modes, in fully consistent with the general wisdom about entanglement. Naturally a question arises: which single particle basis does one choose? The answer is that it depends on the relevance to the question one is concerned, or which single particle basis corresponds to the particles that are detected in the circumstance.

Given that in this approach, the entanglement is between the occupation-numbers of different single particle basis states, whether it can be generated by, or whether it exists in an eigenstate of, a many-particle second-quantized Hamiltonian $``$ depends on whether there is coupling between different single particle basis states in $``$, in contrast with the case of distinguishable particles, for which the entanglement depends on interaction of particles. Hence generically speaking, interaction is not necessary for generation or existence of occupation-number entanglement. For example, in a single particle basis in which $``$ is not diagonal, the occupation-number entanglement exists in eigenstates of $``$, and can be dynamically generated.

Here we note, however, there is a special single particle basis in which, if there is no interaction, entanglement cannot be generated from a non-entangled state, while each energy eigenstate must be non-entangled (except the insignificant case of a superposition of two degenerate non-entangled eigenstates with different occupation numbers in at least two single particle basis states). In this single particle basis, entanglement in a non-degenerate energy eigenstate is only caused by interaction. Hence this single particle basis is very suitable in characterizing the quantum correlation due to interaction, rather than the entanglement that appears merely as a consequence of Bogoliubov mode transformation. For convenience, let us call this special single particle basis the proper single particle basis.

The so-called proper single particle basis is just the set of eigenstates of the single particle Hamiltonian. It is indexed by the (continuous or discrete) momentum in the case of free particles, the Bloch wave-vector plus the band index in the case of particles in a periodic potential, the degree of the Hermit polynomial and the perpendicular momentum in the case of electrons in a magnetic field, etc. The inclusion of spin as an additional index is straightforward.

It is instructive and amusing to consider our method of characterizing interaction-induced entanglement as an extension of the novel way of counting states of a system of identical particles invented by Bose, Einstein and Dirac pais . They considered ideal gas, hence the underlying many-particle states are just all the possible occupation-number basis states in the momentum basis, which is the proper single particle basis in this question. Each of these occupation-number basis states is a direct product of the occupation states of single particle basis states (modes). No superposition of these occupation-number basis states. No entanglement between the proper single particle basis states. Hence the classical Boltzmann counting is applicable when one considers the occupations of the single particle states, rather than the particles themselves. The entanglement between these different single particle states emerges when there is interaction, as discussed in this paper.

In this paper, using the proper single particle basis, we shall explore the interaction-induced entanglement in representative many-particle states, which are of fundamental importance in condensed matter physics and the like. In particular, we emphasize the role of Hamiltonian and the relation between entanglement with macroscopic physical properties.

Energy eigenstates, especially the ground states, are of utmost importance in many-body and statistical physics. Besides, adiabatically controlled ground states is also used in some quantum computing schemes farhi ; zanardi2 ; sw . Hence it is important to address the issue of entanglement in the energy eigenstates, especially the ground state. These aspects further motivate our work.

The organization of this paper is the following. First an introduction and clarification is made on occupation-number entanglement in a system of many identical particles, and especially to the so-called proper single particle basis. Then we discuss the ground state and excitations of normal Fermi systems, especially the electron-hole entanglement in the Hatree-Fock approach. In the next two sections, we make detailed investigations on entanglement in quantum Hall effect and Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) superconductivity, respectively. Afterwards there is a section on Bosonic entanglement, in which entanglement in Bogoliubov theory is calculated. We summarize after making some additional remarks.

## 2. The proper single particle basis

In the standard formalism of second quantization, one can write a state of many identical particles in terms of an arbitrarily chosen single particle basis, as

$$|\psi =\underset{n_1,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}}}{}f(n_1,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}})|n_1,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}},$$
(1)
where $`n_i`$ is the occupation number of single particle state $`i`$ in the chosen single particle basis, $`|n_i(1/\sqrt{n_i!})a_{i}^{}{}_{}{}^{n_i}|0`$ $`|n_1,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}}`$ corresponds to a Slater determinant or permanent wavefunction in the configuration space. For a fixed number of particles, whether a many-particle state is entangled means whether the wavefunction is a single Slater determinant or permanent. In principle, entanglement in a system of identical particles is a property dependent on which single particles and which single particle basis is chosen in representing the many-particle system, and can be quantified as that among occupation numbers of different single particle states.

Choosing a different single particle basis means partitioning the system into a different set of subsystems, based on which the entanglement is then defined. But once a single particle basis is chosen, the entanglement in invariant under any unitary operation on individual single particle basis states, i.e. when there is no coupling between different single particle basis states. In other words, in the present case, the meaning of “local operations” as previously used in quantum information theory is generalized to operations on the corresponding single particle basis states, as indexed by the subscript $`i`$ above. Of course, it is constrained that some kinds of generalized “local” unitary operations do not exist physically. Once this generalization of the meaning of subsystems and local operations is made, the usual method of calculating the amount of entanglement, as developed in quantum information theory, can be applied.

Quantitatively, one considers the Fock-state reduced density matrix of a set of single particle basis states $`1,\mathrm{},l`$,

$$\begin{array}{c}n_1^{},\mathrm{},n_l^{}|\rho _l(1\mathrm{}l)|n_1,\mathrm{},n_l\\ _{n_{l+1},\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}}}n_1^{},\mathrm{},n_l^{},n_{l+1},n_{\mathrm{}}|\rho |n_1,\mathrm{},n_l,n_{l+1},n_{\mathrm{}}.\end{array}$$

Its von Neumann entropy measures the entanglement of this set of single particle basis states and the rest of the system, relative to the empty state. If the total number of particles is conserved, then it is constrained that the only matrix elements which may be nonzero are those with $`_{i=1}^ln_i^{}=_{i=1}^ln_i`$. In particular, the reduced density matrix of one single particle basis state is always diagonal, indicating entanglement whenever there are more than one nonzero diagonal elements.

In this approach, the statistics determines the dimensions of the Hilbert space of each mode. For fermions, $`n_i=0,1`$, $`D=2`$, hence the entanglement between one single particle basis state and the rest of the system is $`0S\mathrm{ln}2`$. For bosons, $`n_i`$ is arbitrary, hence $`D`$ is infinity. This point does not pose real difficulties, but further investigation on it is interesting.

One can also define the entanglement relative to the ground state, by considering only the effect of creation and annihilation operators acting on the ground state. Then $`n_i`$ in (2. The proper single particle basis) is understood as the number of the excited particles, which are absent in the ground state $`|G`$, i.e. $`|n_1,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}}(1/\sqrt{n_1!\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}!})a_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{n_1}\mathrm{}a_{\mathrm{}}^{}{}_{}{}^{n_{\mathrm{}}}|G`$.

The non-relativistic field theoretic or second quantized Hamiltonian is

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill & =d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)h(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)+d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)h^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)\hfill \\ & +\frac{1}{2}d^3rd^3r^{}\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫^{})V(𝐫,𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫^{})\widehat{\psi }(𝐫),\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`h(𝐫)`$ is the single particle Hamiltonian including the kinetic energy, $`V(𝐫,𝐫^{})`$ is the particle-particle interaction, $`h^{}(𝐫)`$ is some external potential which is not included in $`h(𝐫)`$ for convenience. In the examples in this paper, $`h^{}0`$ only in the issue of generating electron-hole excitations by electron-light interaction; $`h^{}=0`$ in all discussions on entanglement in many-particle energy eigenstates. The field operator $`\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)`$ can be expanded in an arbitrarily chosen single particle basis as $`\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)=_i\varphi _i(𝐫)a_i`$, where $`i`$ is the collective index of the single particle state, which may include spin if needed, $`a_i`$ is the annihilation operator, $`\varphi _i(𝐫)`$ is the single particle wavefunction in position space. We use the same notations for fermions and bosons. Thus $``$ can also be written as

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill & =\hfill & \underset{ij}{}i|h|ja_i^{}a_j\hfill \\ & & +\underset{ij}{}i|h^{}|ja_i^{}a_j+\frac{1}{2}\underset{ijlm}{}ij|V|lma_i^{}a_j^{}a_ma_l,\hfill \end{array}$$
(2)
The generalization to the existence of more species of identical particles is straightforward. Single particle basis transformation leads to a unitary transformation in the creation and annihilation operators. There may be more general transformations of the creation and annihilation operators, and some even involve combination of operators of different species. Such a transformation means describing the system in terms of a different set of single particles or quasiparticles.

Even if $`V=0`$ and $`h^{}=0`$, as far as $`i|h|j0`$, $``$ can generate occupation-number entanglement between single particle basis state $`i`$ and $`j`$.

An eigenstate of a second quantized interacting Hamiltonian is often entangled. In the chosen single particle basis, if an eigenstate of (2) is non-entangled, then it must be of the form $`|\psi =_i|n_i`$. Consequently for each $`i`$, $`\widehat{n}_i|\psi =\widehat{n}_i|\psi `$, where $`\widehat{n}_i=a_i^{}a_i`$. It can be seen that this is often not satisfied by $``$ in (2).

However, when we use entanglement to characterize the quantum correlation caused by interaction, it is suitable to use the set of eigenstates of the single particle Hamiltonian $`h`$, which we call proper single particle basis. In this single particle basis, with $`h\varphi _\mu =ϵ_\mu \varphi _\mu `$, $`d^3r\widehat{\psi }^{}(𝐫)h(𝐫)\widehat{\psi }(𝐫)=_\mu ϵ_\mu a_\mu ^{}a_\mu `$, whose eigenstates are of the form $`_\mu |n_\mu `$, where $`\mu `$ is the collective index of the proper single particle basis.

Therefore in the proper single particle basis, entanglement can be used to characterize the effect of interaction. In case $`h^{}=0`$, it characterizes the effect of the particle-particle interaction. Each non-degenerate energy eigenstate of the non-interacting system must be non-entangled. When there is degeneracy, an entangled energy eigenstate of a free system may be constructed as a superposition of degenerate non-entangled states that differ in the occupation-numbers of at least two single particle basis states (on the other hand, particle number conservation constrains that it is impossible to be different only in one single particle basis state). But one can always use a set of non-entangled eigenstates. If in the proper single particle basis, entangled energy eigenstates inevitably arise, then there must be interaction.

Besides, the proper single particle basis directly corresponds to the energy spectrum of single particle excitations, and is more experimentally accessible.

For the so-called strongly correlated systems, e.g. Luttinger liquid and fractional quantum Hall state discussed below, peculiar physical properties are caused by the strong (Coulomb) interaction, hence it is particularly interesting to consider occupation-number entanglement in the proper single particle basis. By generalizing the method to relativistic field theory, it may be useful for quantum chromodynamics.

On the other hand, when an improper single particle basis is used, even the one-body term in $``$ is not diagonal, and the eigenstates are entangled even when there is no interaction, as seen by transforming $`a_\mu ^{}`$ in $`_\mu |n_\mu _\mu (1/\sqrt{n_\mu !})a_{\mu }^{}{}_{}{}^{n_\mu }|0`$. Nevertheless, entanglement in an improper basis may be interesting in problems such as hopping, tunnelling, Mott transition, etc. For example, in a two-state problem, of which the double well potential problem is an example, the proper basis states are linear superpositions of the two states, but in many cases it is these two states that are observed. As occupation-number entanglement in an improper single particle basis presents even when there is no interaction, it may be valuable for quantum information processing.

When there are more than one index in the single particle basis, one of them can be used as the tag effectively distinguishing the particles, and the other indices determine whether they are entangled in these degrees of freedom. With this effective distinguishability, the state in the configuration space of the remaining degrees of freedom can be directly obtained from the second-quantized state. For example, in $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(a_𝐤^{}^{}a_𝐤^{}+a_𝐤^{}^{}a_𝐤^{})|0`$, where $`𝐤^{}`$ and $`𝐤`$ represent momenta, one can say that the particle in $`|𝐤^{}`$ and the particle in $`|𝐤`$ are spin-entangled. One can also say that the particle in $`|`$ and the particle in $`|`$ are momentum-entangled. With the momentum as the distinguishing tag, the spin state is $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|_𝐤^{}|_𝐤+|_𝐤^{}|_𝐤)`$. Alternatively, with the spin as the distinguishing tag, the momentum state is $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(|𝐤^{}_{}|𝐤_{}+|𝐤_{}|𝐤^{}_{})`$.

The ideas about the occupation-number entanglement can be consistently applied even to a one-particle state $`|\varphi =_ic_i|i`$, where $`|i`$’s are a set of basis states. In terms of occupation numbers of different basis states, the state can be written as $`|\varphi =_ic_i|1_i_{ji}|0_j`$. Thus the occupation-number of basis state $`|i`$ is entangled with other basis states, with the amount of entanglement $`|c_i|^2\mathrm{ln}|c_i|^2(1|c_i|^2)\mathrm{ln}(1|c_i|^2)`$. When $`|\varphi `$ and $`|i`$ ’s are eigenstates of the Hamiltonian, $`|\varphi =|I`$, thus $`c_I=1`$ while $`c_j=0`$ for $`jI`$, consequently in $`|\varphi `$, each basis state is non-entangled with other basis states. In the example of an electron in a superposition of a state $`|𝐤^{}_e`$ in a Fermi sea and a state $`|𝐤_e`$ out of the Fermi sea, written in terms of the occupation-numbers of these two electronic states, $`a|0_{e𝐤}|0_{e𝐤^{}}+b|1_{e𝐤}|1_{e𝐤^{}}`$, can also be written in terms of occupation-numbers of the electron state $`|𝐤_e`$ and the hole state $`|𝐤^{}_h`$, as $`a|0_{e𝐤}|0_{h𝐤^{}}+b|1_{e𝐤}|1_{h𝐤^{}}`$. This becomes a superposition of absence and presence of an electron-hole pair. But this kind of electron-hole entanglement is different from the entanglement between an existing electron and an existing hole.

Now we start our discussions on occupation-number entanglement in important energy eigenstates in many-particle physics, using the so-called proper single particle basis. These systems play fundamental roles in condensed matter physics.

## 3. Fermi systems

First let us consider a fermi gas, which plays a fundamental role in understanding condensed matter physics. The proper single particle basis here is the tensor product of single-particle momentum and spin states.

The ground state of a free Fermi gas is $`|G=_𝐤^{|𝐤|<k_F}a_𝐤^{}a_𝐤^{}|0`$, where $`k_F`$ is the Fermi momentum. It is clearly non-entangled. An excited state like $`a_{𝐤s}^{}b_{𝐤^{}s^{}}^{}|G`$ is still separable, where $`|𝐤|>k_F>|𝐤^{}|`$, $`b_{𝐤s}^{}=a_{𝐤s}`$ is the hole operator. It is simple to check that for each of these non-entangled states, a Fock-space reduced density matrix, as in (2. The proper single particle basis), always has only one nonzero element, hence the entanglement between the occupation-numbers of any set of single particle basis states and the rest of the system indeed vanishes.

There may be entanglement in an excited state of a Fermi gas, because of degeneracy due to spin degree of freedom. For example, there is maximal entanglement in the electron-hole pair $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}+a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{})|G`$. For a free gas, it is a superposition of the degenerate non-entangled states $`a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}|G`$ and $`a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}|G`$. With respect to the empty state, it is an entanglement between the occupation-number of the excited electron state and others. Since $`|G`$ is non-entangled, entanglement in an excited state relative to the empty state is equal to the entanglement relative to $`|G`$. The entanglement in $`\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}+a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{})|G`$ is simply electron-hole entanglement with respect to the ground state. Moreover, an electron and a hole, by definition, corresponds to different single particle states, and can be regarded as distinguishable particles, as tagged by that a creation operator of a hole corresponds to annihilation of an electron. In the absence of interaction, however, one can always use a set of non-entangled energy eigenstates as the orthonormal set.

More realistic treatment, in the context of solid state physics, takes into account the Coulomb interaction between the electrons, as well as the crystal structure, which provides a single particle (periodic) potential. A basic method is the Hatree-Fock approach solid . The ground state is still non-entangled, since the Hatree-Fock treatment only modifies the single particle states and ground state energy. But entanglement inevitably arises in excited states. To illustrate the idea, the simplest model of electronic excitations in solids is considered in the following.

Consider one electron is excited from a valence band to a conduction band. An eigenstate of this excitation, an exciton, is $`_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}|G`$, in the spinless case. For brevity, the band indices are omitted, as one corresponds to the electron operator while the other corresponds to the hole operator. The occupation numbers of the basis states $`|𝐤_e`$ and $`|𝐤^{}_h`$ respectively occupied by the excited electron and by the hole are the same as those in relative to the ground state, since they are zero in the ground state. The Fock-space reduced density matrix elements of $`𝐤`$ can be obtained as $`1|\rho _1(𝐤)|1=\alpha _𝐤_𝐤^{}|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2`$, $`0|\rho _1(𝐤)|0=1\alpha _𝐤`$. Therefore the occupation-number entanglement between the electron basis state $`|𝐤_e`$ and the rest of the system is $`\alpha _𝐤\mathrm{ln}\alpha _𝐤(1\alpha _𝐤)\mathrm{ln}(1\alpha _𝐤)`$. The occupation-number entanglement between the hole basis state $`|𝐤^{}_h`$ and the rest of the system is $`\alpha _𝐤^{}\mathrm{ln}\alpha _𝐤^{}(1\alpha _𝐤^{})\mathrm{ln}(1\alpha _𝐤^{})`$, where $`\alpha _𝐤^{}=_𝐤|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2`$. The Fock-space reduced density matrix $`\rho _{1,1}`$ of the electron basis state $`|𝐤_e`$ plus the hole basis state $`|𝐤^{}_h`$ as a subsystem is calculated by considering that the electron and the hole belong to different species of identical particles. $`1,1|\rho _{1,1}(𝐤,𝐤^{})|1,1=|A_{𝐤,𝐪^{}}|^2`$, $`1,0|\rho _{1,1}(𝐤,𝐤^{})|1,0=\gamma _𝐤_{𝐪^{}𝐤^{}}|A_{𝐤,𝐪^{}}|^2`$, $`0,1|\rho _{1,1}(𝐤,𝐤^{})|0,1=\gamma _𝐤^{}_{𝐪𝐤}|A_{𝐪,𝐤^{}}|^2`$. Furthermore, $`\rho _{1,1}(𝐤,𝐤^{})`$ must be diagonal. Hence their occupation-number entanglement with the rest of the system is $`|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2\mathrm{ln}|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2\gamma _𝐤\mathrm{ln}\gamma _𝐤\gamma _𝐤^{}\mathrm{ln}\gamma _𝐤^{}(1|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2\gamma _𝐤\gamma _𝐤^{})\mathrm{ln}(1|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2\gamma _𝐤\gamma _𝐤^{})`$.

With the electron and the hole effectively distinguishable, the state can be written, in the configuration space, as $`_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|𝐤_e|𝐤^{}_h`$. The entanglement between these two distinguishable particles is obtained by finding the eigenvalues of the reduced density matrix for either particle.

With spin degeneracy, the excitonic states are $`_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|S,S_z_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}`$, where $`|S,S_z_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}`$ represents three triplet states as the ground states, $`|1,1_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}=a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}|G`$, $`|1,0_{\mathrm{𝐤𝐤}^{}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{})|G`$ and $`|1,1_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}=a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}|G`$, and one singlet state $`|0,0_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}+a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{})|G`$.

The occupation-number entanglement, with the full collective index including Bloch wavevector and spin, can be calculated in a way similar to the spinless case. The above discussions on the spinless case applies similarly to $`_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|1,\pm 1_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}`$. For $`_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{}\pm a_𝐤^{}b_𝐤^{}^{})|G`$, one can find, for example, that the occupation-number entanglement between the electron basis state $`|𝐤,_e`$ plus the hole basis state $`|𝐤^{},_h`$ as a subsystem and the rest of the system is $`(|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2/2)\mathrm{ln}(|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2/2)(\gamma _𝐤/2)\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _𝐤/2)(\gamma _𝐤^{}/2)\mathrm{ln}(\gamma _𝐤^{}/2)(1\gamma _𝐤/2\gamma _𝐤^{}/2|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2/2)\mathrm{ln}(1\gamma _𝐤/2\gamma _𝐤^{}/2|A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|^2/2)`$, and that the occupation-number entanglement between the electron basis state $`|𝐤,_e`$ plus the hole basis state $`|𝐤^{},_h`$ as a subsystem and the rest of the system is $`(\alpha _𝐤/2)\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _𝐤/2)(\alpha _𝐤^{}/2)\mathrm{ln}(\alpha _𝐤^{}/2)(1\alpha _𝐤/2\alpha _𝐤^{}/2)\mathrm{ln}(1\alpha _𝐤/2\alpha _𝐤^{}/2)`$.

The entanglement considered above is determined by the Coulomb interaction, as $`A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}`$ is determined by the Schrödinger equation in momentum representation. When Coulomb interaction is negligible, $`A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}=1`$ for a specific pair of values of $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐤^{}`$, and consequently various entanglements concerning the $`𝐤`$ and $`𝐤^{}`$ as discussed above consistently vanish. The spin part of the eigenstates can be chosen to be non-entangled. Interaction causes spread of $`A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}`$ and thus non-vanishing entanglement in the Bloch wavevectors, as well as the spin-entanglement. Noteworthy is that the detail of the interaction only affects $`A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}`$, but does not affect the structure of the spin states.

With the electron and the hole effectively distinguishable, the state can be written, in the configuration space, as $`_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}A_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}|𝐤_e|𝐤^{}_h|S,S_z`$. So the orbital and spin degrees of freedom are actually separated, as consistent with the fact that the spin-orbit coupling has been neglected here.

An excited state is often generated by electron-light interaction switched on for a period. The light is treated as classical. The electron-light interaction corresponds to $`h^{}`$ in Section 2. With coupling between different single electron and hole basis states, it can generate electron-hole entanglement. This underlies a recent experimental result chen , on which a theoretical analysis, with spin-orbit coupling taken into account, will be given elsewhere sl .

If an interacting fermi system can be described as a Fermi liquid, then there is a one-to-one correspondence between the particles in the non-interacting system and the quasi-particles of the interacting system, obtained by adiabatically turning on the interaction landau . Therefore in terms of the quasiparticles, the ground state of a Fermi liquid is non-entangled. One may say that the electron entanglement caused by the interaction can be renormalized away. In contrast, the ground state of Luttinger liquid is a global unitary transformation of a Fermi sea luttinger , and is entangled. New ground states emerge in phenomena like quantum Hall effect and superconductivity, in which entanglement is important, as shown in the next two sections.

## 4. Quantum Hall Effect

Quantum Hall states are obtained by filling the spin polarized electrons in the degenerate (single particle) Landau levels qhe . The single particle Hamiltonian, corresponding to the proper single particle basis, is the Hamiltonian of a two-dimensional electron in a magnetic field. One knows that the degeneracy of each Landau level, i.e. the number of different states of each energy eigenstate, is the same. The key quantity in quantum Hall effect is the filling factor $`\nu `$, which is the number of electrons divided by the degeneracy of each Landau level, and manifested in the quantized Hall resistivity.

We show that the filling factor $`\nu `$ determines the entanglement. First, the entanglement vanishes in integer quantum Hall effect, which appears when $`\nu =n`$ is an integer. The $`n`$ lowest Landau levels are completely filled while others are empty. Because of energy gap, the interaction is not important, and the ground state of the interacting systems can be smoothly connected to that of the non-interacting system. Thus the ground state is just a product state $`_\mu a_\mu ^{}|0`$, where $`\mu `$ runs over the filled states. Hence the occupation number of each single particle state belonging to a completely filled Landau levels is $`1`$, while the occupation number of every other single particle state is $`0`$. In the Fock-space reduced density matrix of a single particle basis state, for a state $`\mu `$ belonging to a completely filled Landau level, only $`1|\rho _1(\mu )|1=1`$ is nonzero, while for a state $`\mu `$ belonging to an empty Landau level, only $`0|\rho _1(\mu )|0=1`$ is nonzero. It is like the ground state of a free Fermi gas. All single particle basis states are separable from one another, and there is no entanglement.

In a fractional quantum Hall state of $`\nu =n+f`$, where $`f`$ is the proper fractional part, $`n0`$ lowest Landau levels are completely filled, $`f`$ of the next Landau level is filled, the higher Landau level are empty. Because of partial filling, the interaction cannot be treated perturbatively, and in the ground state, electrons are strongly correlated. Each single particle basis state belonging to one of the $`n`$ completely filled levels or the empty levels is separated, i.e. the occupation number is either $`0`$ or $`1`$ and is just a factor in the many-particle state in the particle number representation.

For each single particle basis state in the partially filled landau level, its entanglement with the rest of the system is obtained as follows. Consider the identity

$$1|\rho _1(\mu )|1=\underset{n_1\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}}{}n_\mu n_1\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}|\rho |n_1\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}=\widehat{n}_\mu ,$$
(3)
where $`n_\mu =0,1`$ ($`\mu =1,\mathrm{},\mathrm{}`$), $`\widehat{n}_\mu Tr(\rho \widehat{n}_\mu )`$ is the expectation value of the particle number at state $`\mu `$. The first equality is valid only for fermions while the second is valid for both fermions and boson. On the other hand, in an isotropic uniform state, for each single particle basis state belonging to the partially filled Landau level,

$$\widehat{n}_\mu =f.$$
(4)
Therefore the entanglement between a single particle basis state belonging to the partially filled Landau level and the rest of the system is

$$S=f\mathrm{ln}f(1f)\mathrm{ln}(1f).$$
(5)
This simple expression of entanglement, in terms of the proper fractional part of filling factor, gives a useful measure of the quantum correlation in a quantum Hall state. The entanglement increases from $`0`$ at $`f=0`$, corresponding to the integer quantum Hall effect, towards the maximum $`\mathrm{ln}2`$, after which it decreases towards $`0`$ at $`f=1`$, corresponding to the integer quantum Hall effect again. Note that the filling factor, hence the entanglement, is extremely precisely measured, with topological stability. Anyons have been proposed as a candidate to implement fault-tolerant quantum computing lloyd2 ; kitaev . The present result confirms the intrinsic entanglement, which is needed for quantum computing.

The amount of entanglement obtained above is consistent with the fact that for an integer quantum Hall effect, the many-particle wavefunction is a single Slater determinant, indicating separability, while for fractional quantum effect, it is not laughlin , indicating the existence of entanglement. The Laughlin state is indeed isotropic uniform.

The fractional quantum Hall effect can be understood in terms of the composite fermions or composite bosons qhe , which are non-entangled. For example, the state at $`\nu =1/(2p+1)`$ can be viewed as $`\nu _{eff}=1`$ integer quantum Hall state of composite fermions, or equivalently as Bose condensation of composite bosons, while $`\nu =1/2p`$ state is a free Fermi gas with a Fermi surface. In each of these descriptions, the system of the composite particles is separable. This separability can also be inferred from the off-diagonal long-range order (ODLRO) exhibited by these composite particles girvin , because disentanglement of the condensate mode from other modes underlies ODLRO dis . ODLRO is an important notion in many-particle physics, and is the hallmark of Bose condensation and superconductivity yang .

## 5. BCS Superconductivity

As another example of using the concept of entanglement to further our understanding of many-particle physics, we now consider BCS superconductivity bcs ; schrieffer . The Hamiltonian is $`=_{𝐤,s}ϵ_𝐤n_{𝐤,s}+_{𝐤,𝐤^{}}𝐤^{},𝐤^{}|V|𝐤,𝐤a_𝐤^{}^{}a_𝐤^{}^{}a_𝐤a_𝐤`$. The proper single particle basis is $`(𝐤,s)`$, in which the one-body term in $``$ is diagonalized. The BCS superconducting ground state is,

$$|\psi _0=𝒩_0\underset{𝐤}{}(1+g_𝐤a_𝐤^{}a_𝐤^{})|0,$$
(6)
where $`𝒩_0=_𝐤(1+|g_𝐤|^2)^{1/2}`$ is the normalization factor. For $`|\psi _0`$, in which the particle number is not conserved, The entanglement is only between each pair $`(𝐤,s)`$ and $`(𝐤,s)`$, with the amount

$$S_0=z_𝐤\mathrm{ln}z_𝐤(1z_𝐤)\mathrm{ln}(1z_𝐤),$$
(7)
where $`z_𝐤=1/(1+|g_𝐤|^2)`$. There is no entanglement between different pairs.

However, for a system of $`N`$ electrons, with $`N`$ fixed, the exact state is the projection of $`|\psi _0`$ onto the $`N`$-particle space, which is schrieffer <sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Without loss of essence, suppose $`N`$ to be even here. It is straightforward to extend to the case in which the number of particles is odd or the system is at an excited state. For example, if one particle at $`(𝐩,)`$ has no mate $`(𝐩,)`$, $`|\psi _0`$ is replaced as $`_{𝐤𝐩}(1+g_𝐤a_𝐤^{}a_𝐤^{})a_{𝐩,}|0`$.

$$|\psi (N)=𝒩_Ng_{𝐤_1}a_{𝐤_1}^{}a_{𝐤_1}^{}\mathrm{}g_{𝐤_{N/2}}a_{𝐤_{N/2}}^{}a_{𝐤_{N/2}}^{}|0,$$
(8)
where $`𝒩_N=(|g_{𝐤_1}|^2\mathrm{}|g_{𝐤_{N/2}}|^2)^{1/2}`$, $``$ represents summations over $`𝐤_1,\mathrm{},𝐤_{N/2}`$, with the constraint $`𝐤_i𝐤_j`$. One can observe that this state is given by the superposition of all kinds of products of $`N/2`$ different $`g_𝐤a_𝐤^{}a_𝐤^{}`$. This feature leads to entanglement between different Cooper paired modes.

Let us investigate the entanglement in $`|\psi (N)`$. First we evaluate the elements of the Fock-space reduced density matrix of mode $`(𝐤,s)`$, denoted as $`n_{𝐤,s}|\rho _1(𝐤,s)|n_{𝐤,s}`$. One can obtain

$$1_{𝐤,s}|\rho _1(𝐤,s)|1_{𝐤,s}=x_𝐤=\frac{|g_𝐤|^2^{}|g_{𝐤_2^{}}|^2\mathrm{}|g_{𝐤_{N/2}^{}}|^2}{|g_{𝐤_1}|^2\mathrm{}|g_{𝐤_{N/2}}|^2},$$

where $`^{}`$ represents the summations over $`𝐤_2^{},\mathrm{},𝐤_{N/2}^{}`$, with the constraint $`𝐤_i^{}𝐤_j^{}`$ and $`𝐤_i^{}𝐤`$, where $`i,j=2\mathrm{}N/2`$. One can obtain $`0_{𝐤,s}|\rho _1(𝐤,s)|0_{𝐤,s}=1x_𝐤`$. Hence in the basis $`(|0_{𝐤,s},|1_{𝐤,s})`$,

$$\rho _1(𝐤,s)=diag(1x_𝐤,x_𝐤).$$
(9)
One can also obtain that the element of the reduced density matrix for one pair of modes with the opposite $`𝐤`$ and $`s`$, denoted as $`n_{𝐤,s},n_{𝐤,s}|\rho _2(𝐤,s;𝐤,s)|n_{𝐤,s},n_{𝐤,s}`$, is $`x_𝐤`$ when $`n_{𝐤,s}=n_{𝐤,s}=1`$, is $`1x_𝐤`$ when $`n_{𝐤,s}=n_{𝐤,s}=0`$, and is $`0`$ otherwise. Hence in the basis $`(|0_{𝐤,s}0_{𝐤,s},|0_{𝐤,s}1_{𝐤,s},|1_{𝐤,s}0_{𝐤,s},|1_{𝐤,s}1_{𝐤,s})`$,

$$\rho _2(𝐤,s;𝐤,s)=diag(1x_𝐤,0,0,x_𝐤).$$
(10)
Therefore the entanglement between the occupation-number at mode $`(𝐤,s)`$ and others is

$$S=x_𝐤\mathrm{ln}x_𝐤(1x_𝐤)\mathrm{ln}(1x_𝐤),$$
(11)
so is also the entanglement between the occupation-numbers of the pair $`(𝐤,s)`$ and $`(𝐤,s)`$ on one hand, and the rest of the system on the other. Note that in $`|\psi (N)`$, there is no entanglement between each pair $`(𝐤,s)`$ and $`(𝐤,s)`$, as can be simply confirmed by the fact that (10) is diagonal.

If $`g_𝐤`$ is $`1`$ for $`|𝐤|<k_f`$ and is $`0`$ for $`|𝐤|>k_f`$, then $`x_𝐤`$ is $`1`$ for $`|𝐤|<k_f`$ and is $`0`$ for $`|𝐤|>k_f`$. Consequently for any $`𝐤`$, each of those Fock-space reduced density matrices only has one non-vanishing element. Therefore the entanglement $`S`$ reduces to zero, consistent with the fact that under this limit, the state (8) reduces to the ground state of a free Fermi gas schrieffer .

In the superconducting state, $`g_𝐤`$ differs from that of the free Fermi gas in the vicinity of the Fermi surface, consequently the amount of entanglement becomes nonzero. $`g_𝐤`$ is just the relative momentum wavefunction of each Cooper-paired electron, and is directly related to the superconducting energy gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤`$ as $`g_𝐤/(1+g_𝐤^2)=\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤/2E_𝐤`$, where $`E_𝐤=\sqrt{𝐤^2/2m+\mathrm{\Delta }_𝐤^2}`$. As the order parameter, superconducting energy gap is a key physical property of superconductivity.

Therefore we have obtained a direct relation between entanglement and the superconducting energy gap and thus various physical properties of superconductivity. The entanglement vanishes if and only if the superconductivity vanishes.

Although superconductivity may be loosely described as Bose condensation of Cooper pairs, it is understood that a Cooper pair is still different from a boson, the strong overlap and correlations between Cooper pairs gives rise to the gap which is absent in the case of a Bose gas schrieffer . The crossover between Bose condensation and BCS superconductivity has been an interesting topic for a long time. Here we have found that entanglement in $`|\psi (N)`$ provides a quantitative characterizations of the correlations between Cooper pairs and thus may be useful in studying of the crossover between Bose condensation and superconductivity.

After this work was done, there appeared a preprint on entanglement in BCS state involving strong interaction miller .

## 6. Bose Systems

Consider a system of spinless Bosons. The proper single particle basis is the momentum state. An eigenstate of a free spinless boson system is simply $`|n_{𝐪_1},n_{𝐪_2},\mathrm{}=(a_{𝐪_1}^{})^{n_{𝐤_1}}(a_{𝐪_2}^{})^{n_{𝐪_2}}\mathrm{}|0`$. In the ground state $`(a_0^{})^N|0`$, all particles occupy the zero momentum state. This is Bose-Einstein condensation. The system is obviously non-entangled, in the proper single particle basis, in all the eigenstates. Thus there is entanglement in position basis, in consistent with a related work simon .

For a weakly interacting spinless boson gas, entanglement between occupation-numbers of different momentum states is still absent under Hatree-Gross-Pitaevskii approximation. In this approach, an energy eigenstate is approximated as a product of single particle states, with symmetrization, hence there is no occupation-number entanglement. The ground state is a product of a same single particle state. The weak interaction only affects the single particle state. Nevertheless, there may be entanglement when there is spin degree of freedom or in other complex situations shi3 ; milburn . These features are like those of the Hatree-Fock approach of a Fermi gas.

The next level of treatment is Bogoliubov theory bogo , nonzero entanglement appears, even in the ground state. It is first hinted by the Bogoliubov transformation in the original, particle non-conserving, formulation, which defines a new annihilation operator which is a superposition of a annihilation operator $`a_𝐪`$ and the creation operator for the opposite momentum $`a_𝐪^{}`$, namely, $`b_𝐪=u_𝐪a_𝐪+v_𝐪a_𝐪^{}`$. This transformation diagonalizes the second quantized Hamiltonian, hence in terms of the newly defined quasiparticles, there is no entanglement, signalling that there exists entanglement in terms of the original particles. Similar to BCS superconductivity, in the particle non-conserving theory, entanglement only exists between the each pair of modes $`𝐪`$ and $`𝐪`$ ($`𝐪>0`$). The ground state is huang ; laughlin2

$$\begin{array}{cc}|\mathrm{\Psi }_0& _{n_{𝐪_1}}_{n_{𝐪_2}}\mathrm{}[(v_{𝐪_1}/u_{𝐪_1})^{n_{𝐪_1}}(v_{𝐪_2}/u_{𝐪_2})^{n_{𝐪_2}}\mathrm{}]\hfill \\ & |n_0;n_{𝐪_1},n_{𝐪_1};n_{𝐪_2},n_{𝐪_2};\mathrm{},\hfill \end{array}$$
(12)
in which there are $`n_0`$ particles with zero momentum while $`n_𝐪`$ pairs of particles with $`𝐪`$ and $`𝐪`$. Therefore, the entanglement between occupation numbers at $`𝐪`$ and $`𝐪`$ is $`S=_ix_i\mathrm{ln}x_i`$, where $`x_i=y_i/_iy_i`$, $`n=0,1,\mathrm{},\mathrm{}`$. where $`y_i=|v_𝐪/u_𝐪|^{2i}`$. The condensate mode is indeed disentangled from the rest of the system, in consistent with our result obtained from ODLRO.

Vedral studied entanglement in a Bose condensate, using a state similar to Eq. (12), and calculated a different quantity defined there to measure the amount of entanglement vedral1 .

We now focus on the particle number conserving version of the Bogoliubov theory, which gives the ground state as leggett

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }(N)(a_0^{}a_0^{}\underset{|𝐪|0}{}c_𝐪a_𝐪^{}a_𝐪^{})^{N/2}|0,$$
(13)
where $`c_𝐪`$, with $`|c_𝐪|<1`$ is determined by the Hamiltonian and is the effect of the weak interaction. It can be found that

$$\begin{array}{c}|\mathrm{\Psi }(N)\underset{n_0,n_1\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}}{}p(N/2;n_0\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}})(c_{𝐪_1})^{n_1}\mathrm{}\hfill \\ \times (c_𝐪_{\mathrm{}})^n_{\mathrm{}}|2n_0_0|n_1_{𝐪_1}|n_1_{𝐪_1}\mathrm{}|n_{\mathrm{}}_𝐪_{\mathrm{}}|n_{\mathrm{}}_𝐪_{\mathrm{}}\hfill \end{array}$$
(14)
where $`n_0+n_1+\mathrm{}+n_{\mathrm{}}=N/2`$, $`p(N/2;n_0\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}})=\frac{(N/2)!}{n_0!n_1!\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}!}`$ is the number of partitions of $`N/2`$ objects into different boxes, with $`n_0`$ objects in the box labelled $`0`$, $`n_1`$ in the box labelled $`1`$, and so on. Then one obtains the Fock-space reduced density matrices of different momentum states. The nonvanishing elements of $`\rho _1(0)`$ are

$$\begin{array}{c}x_{2n_0}(0)2n_0|\rho _1(0)|2n_0\hfill \\ =A\underset{n_1\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}}{}p^2(N/2n_0;n_1\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}})|c_{𝐪_1}|^{2n_1}\mathrm{}|c_𝐪_{\mathrm{}}|^{2n_{\mathrm{}}},\hfill \end{array}$$
(15)
where $`n_1+\mathrm{}+n_{\mathrm{}}=N/2n_0`$, the normalization factor $`A=[_{n_0,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}}}p^2(N/2;n_0,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}})|c_{𝐪_1}|^{2n_1}\mathrm{}|c_𝐪_{\mathrm{}}|^{2n_{\mathrm{}}}]^1`$, with $`n_0+n_1+\mathrm{}+n_{\mathrm{}}=N/2`$. It can be seen that

$$x_{2n_0}(0)\frac{|\underset{|𝐪|0}{}c_𝐪|^{N2n_0}}{\underset{n_0=0}{\overset{N/2}{}}|\underset{|𝐪|0}{}c_𝐪|^{N2n_0}},$$
(16)
under the assumption that $`c_{𝐪_1}^{}c_{𝐪_2}0`$, where the summation is over all nonzero $`𝐪_1𝐪_2`$.

The entanglement between the zero momentum state and the rest of the system is

$$S(0)=\underset{n_0=0}{\overset{N/2}{}}x_{2n_0}(0)\mathrm{ln}x_{2n_0}(0).$$
(17)
For a momentum $`𝐪_10`$, the nonvanishing elements of $`\rho _1(𝐪_1)`$ are

$$\begin{array}{c}x_{n_1}(𝐪_1)n_1|\rho _1(𝐪_1)|n_1\hfill \\ =A|c_{𝐪_1}|^{2n_1}\underset{n_0,n_2\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}}{}p^2(N/2;n_0\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}})|c_{𝐪_1}|^{2n_2}\mathrm{}|c_𝐪_{\mathrm{}}|^{2n_{\mathrm{}}},\hfill \end{array}$$
(18)
where the summation is subject to $`n_0+n_2+\mathrm{}+n_{\mathrm{}}=N/2n_1`$. It can be seen that

$`x_{n_1}(𝐪_1){\displaystyle \frac{|c_{𝐪_1}|^{2n_1}\underset{n_0=0}{\overset{N/2n_1}{}}|\underset{|𝐪|0,𝐪_1}{}c_𝐪|^{N2n_02n_1}}{\underset{n_1=0}{\overset{N/2}{}}|c_{𝐪_1}|^{2n_1}\underset{n_0=0}{\overset{N/2n_1}{}}|\underset{|𝐪|0,𝐪_1}{}c_𝐪|^{N2n_02n_1}}}`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{|c_{𝐪_1}|^{2n_1}(\frac{|c_{𝐪_1}|}{|\underset{|𝐪|0,𝐪_1}{}c_𝐪|})^{2n_1}|\underset{|𝐪|0,𝐪_1}{}c_𝐪|^{N+1}}{\underset{n_1=0}{\overset{N/2}{}}[|c_{𝐪_1}|^{2n_1}(\frac{|c_{𝐪_1}|}{|\underset{|𝐪|0,𝐪_1}{}c_𝐪|})^{2n_1}|\underset{|𝐪|0,𝐪_1}{}c_𝐪|^{N+1}]}}`$ (19)
The entanglement between a non-zero momentum state $`𝐪_1`$ and the rest of the system is

$$S(𝐪_1)=\underset{n_1=0}{\overset{N/2}{}}x_{n_1}(𝐪_1)\mathrm{ln}x_{n_1}(𝐪_1).$$
(20)
Obviously, the entanglement between $`𝐪_1`$ and the rest of the system, as well as the entanglement between the pair $`𝐪_1`$ plus $`𝐪_1`$ and the rest of the system, are both also $`S(𝐪_1)`$. It can also be seen that there is no entanglement between $`𝐪_1`$ and $`𝐪_1`$. On this aspect, there is a similarity with BCS superconductivity.

Consider the identity $`_{n_𝐪}n_𝐪n_𝐪|\rho _1(𝐪)|n_𝐪=_{}^{}{}_{\{n_i\}}{}^{}n_𝐪n_0\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}|\rho |n_0\mathrm{}n_{\mathrm{}}=\widehat{n}_𝐪`$, for $`n_𝐪=0,1,\mathrm{}`$, and for different $`𝐪`$’s, where $`_{}^{}{}_{\{n_i\}}{}^{}`$ represents summations over $`n_0,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}}`$, except $`n_𝐪`$. For the Bogoliubov ground state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }(N)`$, it is known that $`\widehat{n}_0`$ is close to $`N`$, while $`\widehat{n}_{𝐪_1}N`$ for $`𝐪_10`$. It is thus constrained that only a small number (compared with $`N`$) of the Fock space matrix elements $`n_𝐪|\rho _1(𝐪)|n_𝐪`$ is considerable for mode $`𝐪`$. Thus the entanglement is small. But it is not zero, as in the Hatree approximation.

Furthermore, (16) indicates that $`x_{2n_0}(0)`$ exponentially decays with the $`n_0`$, with the rate $`1/2\mathrm{ln}|_{|𝐪|0}c_𝐪|`$. Hence indeed very small number of matrix elements $`n_0|\rho _1(0)|n_0`$ is considerable, and thus $`S(0)`$ is small. On the other hand, in (19), the change of $`x_{n_1}(𝐪_1)`$ with $`n_1`$ is slower since it involves the counteracting of two exponentially increasing terms. Consequently $`S(𝐪_1)>S(0)`$.

The small but nonzero entanglement is a characterization of the two-particle correlation caused by the weak interaction, which is the essence of Bogoliubov theory leggett . This can be seen from Eqs. (16) and (19), which indicates that the entanglement is only dependent on the function $`c_𝐪`$, which is determined by the weak interaction.

The result in last and this section is the entanglement in terms of the original particles. As consistent with the fact that entanglement depends on which single particle is used in representing the many-particle system, it can be shown that in the set of eigenstates of the one-particle reduced density matrix (in the case of Bose condensation) or two-particle reduced density matrix (in the case of superconductivity), the condensate mode is disentangled with the rest of the system dis .

## 7. Summary and remarks

It is known that quantum correlation in a system of identical particles can be characterized in terms of entanglement between occupation-numbers of different single particle basis states, and thus depends on which single particle basis is chosen. Consequently, in general, occupation-number entanglement may be generated, or exists in the energy eigenstates, even in absence of interaction of particles. Indeed, it is caused by coupling between different single particle basis states (mode-mode coupling) in the many-particle second-quantized Hamiltonian, which may exist even in the one-body term in the Hamiltonian.

However, our purpose in this paper is to use entanglement as a characterization of effects of interaction. For this purpose, we choose the set of eigenstates of the single particle Hamiltonian as the single particle basis on which the entanglement is defined. For convenience, we call it proper single particle basis. In this single particle basis, if there is no interaction, the second-quantized Hamiltonian is diagonal in different single particle basis states, and thus the many-particle eigenstates can always be chosen to be non-entangled.

Using the so-called proper single particle basis state, we examined entanglement in eigenstates, especially the ground states, of some important many-particle Hamiltonians. These examples demonstrate that entanglement in the proper single particle basis can indeed characterize the effect of interaction, vanishing as the interaction vanishes. Moreover, the amount of the entanglement calculated is directly related to the macroscopic physical properties. In other words, it is demonstrated that the microscopic entanglement is manifested in the macroscopic physical properties. It appears that entanglement in the proper single particle basis is useful especially for studying the strongly correlated systems, in which interactions are important.

For an interacting Fermi gas, electron-hole entanglement inevitably appears in some excited eigenstates, as described in the Hatree-Fock approach. Electron-hole entanglement can be generated by electron-light interaction, which is not included in the single particle Hamiltonian which defines the proper single particle basis.

When the ground state of a Fermi liquid is expressed in terms of the Landau quasiparticles, i.e. electrons dressed by the interaction, it becomes non-entangled.

We found the nice result that the entanglement in a quantum Hall state is just the entropy of the probability distribution $`f`$ and $`1f`$, where $`f`$ is the proper fractional part of the filling factor of a Landau level. Hence entanglement here can be extremely precisely measured, with topological stability. This gives a support to the well-known proposal of using anyons for fault-tolerant quantum computing.

We also made a detailed calculation of entanglement in BCS ground state. Both the particle-number non-conserved and the particle number conserved states are considered. In each case, the amount of entanglement is a function of the relative momentum wavefunction $`g_𝐤`$ of every two Cooper-paired particles, and thus directly related to the superconducting energy gap. The entanglement vanishes if and only if the superconductivity vanishes.

Finally, we turned to Bose systems. For a spinless system, the entanglement is absent in the eigenstates in the Hatree-Gross-Pitaevskii approximation. However, though small, it is non-vanishing in the Bogoliubov theory, using which we calculate the entanglement in the ground state, where there is a kind of pairing between opposite momenta. Entanglement in the proper single particle basis provides a characterization of the two-particle correlation due to interaction, which is the essence of Bogoliubov theory.

Many-body entangled states as those in condensed matter physics may be useful for quantum information processing. One may adiabatically control a time-dependent many-body ground state which encodes the quantum information. If there is a finite energy gap between the ground state and the excited states, as existing in many condensed matter systems, such a quantum information processing should naturally possess some robustness against environmental perturbation.

But more caution is needed in using entanglement in a condensed matter system to demonstrate Bell theorem and such. A reason is that in condensed matter physics, many Hamiltonians, usually instantaneous, are effective ones on a certain time scale, with many degrees of freedom renormalized. The formal entangled state and the instantaneous correlations may be meaningful only on a certain coarse-grained time scale.

For identical particles, there is intrinsic built-in non-separability because of the pre-condition that the spatial wavefunctions overlap, for example, spin magnetism based on exchange interaction originates in antisymmetrizing the spin-orbit states of the electrons interacting with “instantaneous” Coulomb interaction which is always there. Deeper understanding is still needed on the occupation-number entanglement.

## Acknowledgments

I thank Professors Tony Leggett, Peter Littlewood, John Preskill, William Wootters, Yong-Shi Wu and Chen Ning Yang for useful discussions.