Entanglement evolution in Lifshitz-type scalar theories

Abstract

We study propagation of entanglement after a mass quench in free scalar Lifshitz theories. We show that entanglement entropy goes across three distinct growth regimes before relaxing to a generalized Gibbs ensemble, namely, initial rapid growth, main linear growth and tortoise saturation. We show that although a wide spectrum of quasi-particles are responsible for entanglement propagation, as long as the occupation number of the zero mode is not divergent, the linear main growth regime is dominated by the fastest quasi-particle propagating on the edges of a widen light-cone. We present strong evidences in support of effective causality and therefore define an effective notion of saturation time in these theories. The larger the dynamical exponent is, the shorter the linear main growth regime becomes. Due to a pile of tortoise modes which become dominant after saturation of fast modes, exact saturation time is postponed to infinity.