Entanglement entropy minimization and global symmetry violation in scatterings

Abstract

The concept of quantum information has provided new ways to investigate the theoretical structure of particle interactions. In particular, it has been shown that extrema of quantum entanglement in scattering and decay processes can be related to symmetries and characteristic properties of particles. We focus on a more specific question: whether the minimization of entanglement entropy generated in scattering processes is systematically related to the suppression of interactions that violate global symmetries or selection rules. We conjecture that the minimization of the entanglement entropy can select the symmetry-preserving point when a new interaction opens a symmetry-violating scattering channel. We investigate the plausibility of this conjecture by considering interactions beyond the Standard Model (BSM) that violate global symmetries or the corresponding selection rules, including lepton number violation, baryon number violation, lepton flavor violation, and flavor-changing neutral currents. We show that, when symmetry-violating interactions open final-state sectors that are orthogonal to the symmetry-preserving sector, the symmetry-preserving point becomes a local minimum of the entanglement entropy. Our results support the possibility that the minimization of entanglement provides a common information-theoretic principle underlying the suppression of BSM phenomena relevant to symmetry-violating interactions.