Flow-Based Sampling for Entanglement Entropy and the Machine Learning of Defects

Abstract

We introduce a novel technique to numerically calculate Rényi entanglement entropies in lattice quantum field theory using generative models. We describe how flow-based approaches can be combined with the replica trick using a custom neural-network architecture around a lattice defect connecting two replicas. Numerical tests for the ${\varphi }^4$ scalar field theory in two and three dimensions demonstrate that our technique outperforms state-of-the-art Monte Carlo calculations, and exhibit a promising scaling with the defect size.

Comments: some discussions improved, matches the published version