Entanglement area law violation from field-curvature coupling

Abstract: We investigate the entanglement entropy of a massive scalar field nonminimally coupled to spacetime curvature, assuming a static, spherically symmetric background. We discretize the field Hamiltonian by introducing a lattice of spherical shells and imposing a cutoff in the radial direction. We then study the ground state of the field and quantify deviations from area law due to nonminimal coupling, focusing in particular on Schwarzschild-de Sitter and Hayward spacetimes, also discussing de Sitter spacetime as a limiting case. We show that large positive coupling constants can significantly alter the entropy scaling with respect to the boundary area, even in case of small field mass. Our outcomes are interpreted in view of black hole entropy production and early universe scenarios.