Entanglement and Thermal Entropy of Gauge Fields

Understand

We consider the universal logarithmic divergent term in the entanglement entropy of gauge fields in the Minkowski vacuum with an entangling sphere.

• Employing the mapping in arXiv:1102.0440, we analyze the corresponding thermal entropy on open Einstein universe and on the static patch of de Sitter.
• Using the heat kernel of the vector Laplacian we resolve a discrepancy between the free field calculation and the expected Euler conformal anomaly.
• The resolution suggests a modification of the well known formulas for the vacuum expectation value of the spin-1 energy-momentum tensor on conformally flat space-times.