Quantum Phase Transition and Entanglement in Topological Quantum Wires

We investigate the quantum phase transition of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model by inspecting the two-site entanglements in the ground state. It is shown that the topological phase transition of the SSH model is signified by a nonanalyticity of local entanglement, which becomes discontinuous for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2017-06, Vol.7 (1), p.2745-9, Article 2745
Main Authors: Cho, Jaeyoon, Kim, Kun Woo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/766/119/2795
639/766/483/481
Humanities and Social Sciences
Information theory
multidisciplinary
Phase transitions
Scaling
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:We investigate the quantum phase transition of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model by inspecting the two-site entanglements in the ground state. It is shown that the topological phase transition of the SSH model is signified by a nonanalyticity of local entanglement, which becomes discontinuous for finite even system sizes, and that this nonanalyticity has a topological origin. Such a peculiar singularity has a universal nature in one-dimensional topological phase transitions of noninteracting fermions. We make this clearer by pointing out that an analogous quantity in the Kitaev chain exhibiting the identical nonanalyticity is the local electron density. As a byproduct, we show that there exists a different type of phase transition, whereby the pattern of the two-site entanglements undergoes a sudden change. This transition is characterised solely by quantum information theory and does not accompany the closure of the spectral gap. We analyse the scaling behaviours of the entanglement in the vicinities of the transition points.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-02717-w