Entanglement Asymmetry and Quantum Mpemba Effect for Non-Abelian Global Symmetry

Abstract: Entanglement asymmetry is a measure that quantifies the degree of symmetry breaking at the level of a subsystem. In this work, we investigate the entanglement asymmetry in $\widehat{su}(N)_k$ Wess-Zumino-Witten model and discuss the quantum Mpemba effect for SU$(N)$ symmetry, the phenomenon that the more symmetry is initially broken, the faster it is restored. Due to the Coleman-Mermin-Wagner theorem, spontaneous breaking of continuous global symmetries is forbidden in $1+1$ dimensions. To circumvent this no-go theorem, we consider excited initial states which explicitly break non-Abelian global symmetry. We particularly focus on the initial states built from primary operators in the fundamental and adjoint representations. In both cases, we study the real-time dynamics of the R\'enyi entanglement asymmetry and provide clear evidence of quantum Mpemba effect for SU$(N)$ symmetry. Furthermore, we find a new type of quantum Mpemba effect for the primary operator in the fundamental representation: increasing the rank $N$ leads to stronger initial symmetry breaking but faster symmetry restoration. Also, increasing the level $k$ leads to weaker initial symmetry breaking but slower symmetry restoration. On the other hand, no such behavior is observed for adjoint case, which may suggest that this new type of quantum Mpemba effect is not universal.