A charged entanglement entropy is a new measure which probes quantum entanglement between different charge sectors. We study symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases in 2+1 dimensional space-time by using this charged entanglement entropy. SPT phases are short range entangled states without topological order and hence cannot be detected by the topological entanglement entropy. We demonstrate that the universal part of the charged entanglement entropy is non-zero for non-trivial SPT phases and therefore it is a useful measure to detect short range entangled topological phases. We also discuss that the classification of SPT phases based on the charged topological entanglement entropy is related to that of the braiding statistics of quasiparticles.

14 pages, Explanation added in section 3