Shannon and Rényi mutual information in quantum critical spin chains

Abstract: We study the Shannon mutual information in one-dimensional critical spin chains, following a recent conjecture (Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 017201 (2013)), as well as R\'enyi generalizations of it. We combine conformal field theory arguments with numerical computations in lattice discretizations with central charge $c=1$ and $c=1/2$. For a periodic system of length $L$ cut into two parts of length $\ell$ and $L-\ell$, all our results agree with the general shape-dependence $I_n(\ell,L)=(b_n/4)\ln \left(\frac{L}{\pi}\sin \frac{\pi \ell}{L}\right)$, where $b_n$ is a universal coefficient. For the free boson CFT we show from general arguments that $b_n=c=1$. At $c=1/2$ we conjecture a result for $n>1$. We perform extensive numerical computations in Ising chains to confirm this, and also find $b_1\simeq 0.4801629(2)$, a nontrivial number which we do not understand analytically. Open chains at $c=1/2$ and $n=1$ are even more intriguing, with a shape-dependent logarithmic divergence of the Shannon mutual information.