Tripartite information of two-dimensional free fermions: a sine-kernel spectral constant from Fermi surface geometry

Abstract: We show that monogamy of mutual information (MMI) in free-fermion ground states is a property of the observation scale, not of the quantum state. For three adjacent strips of width $w$ on a two-dimensional lattice, translation invariance decomposes the tripartite information as $I_3 = \sum_{k_y} g(k_F(k_y)\, w)$, where $g(z)$ is a universal function of the dimensionless product $z = k_F w$, determined by the spectrum of the sine-kernel integral operator (the Slepian concentration operator). We prove that $g(z)$ has a unique zero at $z^* \approx 1.329$: modes with $k_F w < z^*$ violate MMI ($g > 0$), while modes with $k_F w > z^*$ satisfy it ($g < 0$). Since $z^* / k_F w \to 0$ as $w \to \infty$, any Fermi surface eventually satisfies MMI at large $w$, while any gapless system violates it at sufficiently small $w$. The classification of states as "holographic" or "non-holographic" by the sign of $I_3$ is thus scale-dependent. We establish the properties of $g(z)$ analytically and show that $z^*$ is determined to $0.12\%$ by the cancellation of only two Slepian eigenvalue contributions. For Rényi entropies with index $α> 1$, the function $g_α(z)$ oscillates with multiple sign changes. We verify the framework on square and triangular lattices and show that interactions shift $z^*$ by $\sim 1$--$2\%$.