Entanglement entropy in mesoscopic conductors

The degree of entanglement in a many-body quantum system can be characterized by the entanglement entropy. We consider the entanglement entropy generated between two electronic reservoirs connected by a quantum point contact (QPC) [1,2]. The entanglement entropy is obtained from the fluctuations of the electric current which we evaluate numerically exact using a tight-binding model of the system [3]. Within our approach we can investigate the influence of time-dependent modulations, including the opening and closing of the QPC [4]. We focus on electronic conductors, but our ideas may also be realized in cold atomic gases. \newline\newline [1] I.~Klich and L.~S.~Levitov, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 100502 (2009)\newline [2] H.~F.~Song, C.~Flindt, S.~Rachel, I.~Klich, and K.~Le~Hur, Phys. Rev. B 83, 161408(R) (2011) \& Phys. Rev. B 85, 035409 (2012)\newline [3] K.~Sch\"{o}nhammer, Phys. Rev. B 75, 205329 (2007)\newline [4] K.~H.~Thomas and C.~Flindt, in.~prep.