Entanglement entropy for the n-sphere

We calculate the entanglement entropy for a sphere and a massless scalar field in any dimensions. The reduced density matrix is expressed in terms of the infinitesimal generator of conformal transformations keeping the sphere fixed. The problem is mapped to the one of a thermal gas in a hyperbolic space and solved by the heat kernel approach. The coefficients of the logarithmic term in the entropy for 2 and 4 spacetime dimensions are in accordance with previous numerical and analytical results. In particular, the four-dimensional result, together with the one reported by Solodukhin, gives support to the Ryu–Takayanagi holographic ansatz. We also find that there is no logarithmic contribution to the entropy for odd spacetime dimensions.