Anyonic Entanglement and Topological Entanglement Entropy

Abstract

We study the properties of entanglement in two-dimensional topologically ordered phases of matter. Such phases support anyons, quasiparticles with exotic exchange statistics. The emergent nonlocal state spaces of anyonic systems admit a particular form of entanglement that does not exist in conventional quantum mechanical systems. We study this entanglement by adapting standard notions of entropy to anyonic systems. We use the algebraic theory of anyon models (modular tensor categories) to illustrate the nonlocal entanglement structure of anyonic systems. Using this formalism, we present a general method of deriving the universal topological contributions to the entanglement entropy for general system configurations of a topological phase, including surfaces of arbitrary genus, punctures, and quasiparticle content. We analyze a number of examples in detail. Our results recover and extend prior results for anyonic entanglement and the topological entanglement entropy.