Page curve-like behavior in quantum many-body models

by Prof. Stefan Kehrein (University of Goettingen)

Thursday 7 May 2026, 14:15 → 15:45 Europe/Berlin

Abbeanum/1-HS2 - Straubel-HS (TPI, FSU Jena)

The entanglement entropy of black holes is expected to follow the Page curve. After an initial linear increase with time the entanglement entropy reaches a maximum at the Page time and then decrease. In my talk I introduce quantum many-body models that explicitly show such a Page curve: The entanglement entropy vanishes asymptotically for late times instead of saturating at a volume law. The bending down of the Page curve is accompanied by a breakdown of the semiclassical connection between particle current and entanglement generation, a quantum phase transition in the entanglement Hamiltonian and non-analytic behavior of the q -> infinity Renyi entropy. These observations are worked out exactly in an analytically solvable model of free fermions and generalized to interacting models using numerical methods.