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  • Open Access

Quantum Information Perspective on Many-Body Dispersive Forces

Christopher Willby1,2, Martin Kiffner3, Joseph Tindall4, Jason Crain5,1, and Dieter Jaksch2,1

  • 1Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom
  • 2Institut für Quantenphysik, Universität Hamburg, 22761 Hamburg, Germany
  • 3PlanQC GmbH, Lichtenbergstraße 8, 85748 Garching, Germany
  • 4Centre for Computational Quantum Physics, Flatiron Research Institute, New York, New York 10010 USA
  • 5IBM Research Europe, The Hartree Centre STFC Laboratory, Sci-Tech Daresbury, Warrington WA4 4AD, United Kingdom

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 110403 – Published 11 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/f7yf-mxd5

Abstract

Despite its ubiquity, the quantum many-body properties of dispersion remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the entanglement distribution in assemblies of quantum Drude oscillators, minimal models for dispersion-bound systems. We establish an analytic relationship between entanglement and correlation energy and show how entanglement monogamy determines whether many-body corrections to the pair potential are attractive, repulsive, or zero. These findings, demonstrated in trimers and extended lattices, apply in more general chemical environments where dispersion coexists with other cohesive forces.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 110403– Published 11 September, 2025
  • Received 4 July 2024
  • Revised 17 March 2025
  • Accepted 11 August 2025
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