Bounds on the bipartite entanglement entropy for oscillator systems with or without disorder

We give a direct alternative proof of an area law for the entanglement entropy of the ground state of disordered oscillator systems-a result due to Nachtergaele et al (2013 J. Math. Phys. 54 042110). Instead of studying the logarithmic negativity, we invoke the explicit formula for the entanglement entropy of Gaussian states to derive the upper bound. We also contrast this area law in the disordered case with divergent lower bounds on the entanglement entropy of the ground state of one-dimensional ordered oscillator chains.