A quantum information perspective on meson melting

Michal Heller (Ghent University)

We propose to use quantum information notions to characterize thermally induced melting of nonperturbative bound states at high temperatures. We apply tensor networks to investigate this idea in static and dynamical settings within the Ising quantum field theory, where bound states are confined fermion pairs - mesons. In equilibrium, we identify the transition from an exponential decay to a power law scaling with temperature in an efficiently computable second Renyi entropy of a thermal density matrix as a signature of meson melting. Out of equilibrium, we identify as the relevant signature the transition from an oscillatory to a linear growing behavior of reflected entropy after a thermal quench. These analyses apply more broadly, which brings new ways of describing in-medium meson phenomena in quantum many-body and high-energy physics.

Based on: arXiv:2206.10528