Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Physics

Advisor

Adrian Dumitru

Committee Members

Stefan Bathe

Mark Hillery

Alexander Kovner

Jorge Noronha

Subject Categories

Elementary Particles and Fields and String Theory | Quantum Physics

Keywords

qcd, quantum chromodynamics, proton tomography, qit, quantum information theory

Abstract

In this work we gather results on information theory applied to proton tomography. We start by analyzing the quantum entanglement of momentum, spin-flavor, and color degrees of freedom (d.o.f.) in the leading valence-quark state of the proton on the light front using standard information theoretical tools, leveraging model wavefunctions by Brodsky and Schlumpf to obtain numerical predictions. Light-cone perturbation theory allows us to introduce the one-gluon correction in the sub-leading Fock state and study the entanglement of the gluonic d.o.f. We find weak entanglement in the spatial d.o.f. of the valence quarks, and significantly stronger entanglement in the analogous d.o.f. of the gluon. We then shift gears to the analysis of quantum correlations between specific degrees of freedom. We introduce and study an algorithm that uses entanglement negativity to identify and remove correlations due to entanglement between two d.o.f., then apply it to various aspects of the proton state. We first study quark azimuthal correlations and find a low entropy state with strong quantum correlations, in the sense that removing these correlations has a significant effect on quark pair azimuthal moments. Finally we turn to correlations between quark momentum fractions and numerically identify strong quantum correlations at asymmetric and small x in our model. We perform one step of QCD scale evolution on the entire density matrix and find these quantum correlations now manifest at nearly symmetric momentum fractions.

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