Studying quantum spin systems through entanglement estimators
Abstract
We study the field dependence of the entanglement of formation in anisotropic S=1/2 antiferromagnetic chains displaying a T=0 field-driven quantum phase transition. The analysis is carried out via Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. At zero temperature the entanglement estimators show abrupt changes in the vicinity of the quantum phase transition, vanishing below the critical field, in correspondence with an exactly factorized state. By comparison with the exactly solvable case of a spin dimer, we notice that the above features are due to a genuine many-body effect, which is likely to persist in higher dimensions. Moreover, we single out a novel way of detecting the quantum phase transition of the system, based only on entanglement estimators. Entanglement properties provide therefore new insight in the ground state properties of quantum spin systems.Keywords
All Related Versions
This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: