Duality and entanglement in lattice gauge theories

Abstract: The study of entanglement in quantum field theories provides insight into universal properties which are typically challenging to extract by means of local observables. However, calculations of quantities related to entanglement in gauge theories are limited by ambiguities that stem from the non-factorizability of the Hilbert space. On the other hand, (2+1)-dimensional lattice gauge theories are known to admit a dual description in terms of spin models, for which the replica trick and R\'enyi entropies are well defined. In this contribution, we exploit Kramers-Wannier duality to perform a numerical study of the entropic c-function of the (2+1)-dimensional $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge theory in the continuum limit. Our results are compared with analytical predictions from holographic models.