Free fermions on a line: asymptotics of the entanglement entropy and entanglement spectrum from full counting statistics

Abstract: We consider the entanglement entropy for a line segment in the system of noninteracting one-dimensional fermions at zero temperature. In the limit of a large segment length L, the leading asymptotic behavior of this entropy is known to be logarithmic in L. We study finite-size corrections to this asymptotic behavior. Based on an earlier conjecture of the asymptotic expansion for full counting statistics in the same system, we derive a full asymptotic expansion for the von Neumann entropy and obtain first several corrections for the Renyi entropies. Our corrections for the Renyi entropies reproduce earlier results. We also discuss the entanglement spectrum in this problem in terms of single-particle occupation numbers.