Quantum Correlations in Infinite XY Spin-1/2 Chains and Quantum Phase Transition

We examine the ability of quantum discord (QD) and entanglements (concurrence, EoF and negativity) to detect the critical points associated to quantum phase transitions (QPTs) for XY models, i.e., the isotropic XY model with three-spin interactions at zero temperature, and the anisotropic XY model in a transverse magnetic field h at finite temperatures. For the case of zero temperature, we found that both entanglements and QD can spotlight the critical points of QPTs for these two models. Moreover, QD versus distance M exhibits the long-range behavior of quantum correlation for the anisotropic XY model, while entanglement is short-ranged. For the case of finite temperatures, we found that negativity has the same behaviors with concurrence at or near transition points. Moreover, QD for the anisotropic XY model can increase with temperature even in the absence of a magnetic field.     

A new method to study phase transition in 3D Heisenberg model

It is shown that partial entropy, which is the classical analog of von Neumann entropy in quantum theory, is an effective tool to study the thermodynamic phase transitions in the physical systems. This method captures the intrinsic characters of critical fluctuations and does not need the pre-assumed order parameter. As an example, the finite temperature phase transition in the quantum three-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg model is studied, where the stochastic series expansion quantum Monte Carlo method with operator-loop update is used. It is found that close to the critical temperature, the derivative of partial entropy displays a maximum value and shows finite size scaling behaviors, from which the critical temperature and critical exponents are determined.     

One-norm geometric quantum discord and critical point estimation in the XY spin chain

In contrast with entanglement and quantum discord (QD), we investigate the thermal quantum correlation in terms of Schatten one-norm geometric quantum discord (GQD) in the XY spin chain, and analyze their capabilities in detecting the critical point of quantum phase transition. We show that the one-norm GQD can reveal more properties about quantum correlation between two spins, especially for the long-range quantum correlation at finite temperature. Under the influences of site distance, anisotropy and temperature, one-norm GQD and its first derivative make it possible to detect the critical point efficiently for a general XY spin chain.     

Out-of-Time-Order Correlators and Quantum Phase Transitions in the Rabi and Dicke Models

The out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) is used to study the quantum phase transitions (QPTs) between the normal phase and the superradiant phase in the Rabi and few-body Dicke models with large frequency ratio of the atomic level splitting to the single-mode electromagnetic radiation field frequency. The focus is on the OTOC thermally averaged with infinite temperature, which is an experimentally feasible quantity. It is shown that the critical points can be identified by long-time averaging of the OTOC via observing its local minimum behavior. More importantly, the scaling laws of the OTOC for QPTs are revealed by studying the experimentally accessible conditions with finite frequency ratio and finite number of atoms in the studied models. The critical exponents extracted from the scaling laws of OTOC indicate that the QPTs in the Rabi and Dicke models belong to the same universality class.     

Quantum zigzag transition in ion chains

A string of trapped ions at zero temperature exhibits a structural phase transition to a zigzag structure, tuned by reducing the transverse trap potential or the interparticle distance. The transition is driven by transverse, short wavelength vibrational modes. We argue that this is a quantum phase transition, which can be experimentally realized and probed. Indeed, by means of a mapping to the Ising model in a transverse field, we estimate the quantum critical point in terms of the system parameters, and find a finite, measurable deviation from the critical point predicted by the classical theory. A measurement procedure is suggested which can probe the effects of quantum fluctuations at criticality. These results can be extended to describe the transverse instability of ultracold polar molecules in a one-dimensional optical lattice.     

Thermal Entanglement in XXZ Heisenberg Model for Coupled Spin-Half and Spin-One Triangular Cell

In this paper, we investigate the thermal entanglement of two-spin subsystems in an ensemble of coupled spin-half and spin-one triangular cells, (1/2, 1/2, 1/2), (1/2, 1, 1/2), (1, 1/2, 1) and (1, 1, 1) with the XXZ anisotropic Heisenberg model subjected to an external homogeneous magnetic field. We adopt the generalized concurrence as the measure of entanglement which is a good indicator of the thermal entanglement and the critical points in the mixed higher dimensional spin systems. We observe that in the near vicinity of the absolute zero, the concurrence measure is symmetric with respect to zero magnetic field and changes abruptly from a non-null to null value for a critical magnetic field that can be signature of a quantum phase transition at finite temperature. The analysis of concurrence versus temperature shows that there exists a critical temperature, that depends on the type of the interaction, i.e. ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic, the anisotropy parameter and the strength of the magnetic field. Results show that the pairwise thermal entanglement depends on the third spin which affects the maximum value of the concurrence at absolute zero and at quantum critical points.     

Geometric phase of a central qubit coupled to a spin chain in a thermal equilibrium state

The geometric phase of a central qubit coupling to the surrounding XY chain in a transverse field at finite temperature is studied in this Letter. An explicit analytical expression of the geometric phase for coupled qubit is obtained in the weak coupling limit when the surrounding spin chain is in a thermal equilibrium state. It is shown that the GP displays dramatic change around the quantum phase transition points of the spin chain at zero and a finite range of temperature by numerical analysis. The result reveals that the GP can be used as a tool to detect QPT when the spin chain system is at finite temperature.     

一维自旋1键交替XXZ链中的量子纠缠和临界指数

利用基于张量网络表示的矩阵乘积态算法以及无限虚时间演化块抽取方法,本文研究了一维无限格点自旋1的键交替反铁磁XXZ海森伯模型中的量子相变.分别计算了系统的von Neumann熵、单位格点保真度和序参量,从而得到了系统随键交替强度的变化从拓扑有序Néel相到局域有序二聚化相的量子相变点.我们用矩阵乘积态方法拟合出了相变的中心荷c?0.5,表明此相变属于二维经典的Ising普适类.另外,通过对拓扑Néel序的数值拟合,我们得到了相变点处的特征临界指数β′=0.236和γ′=0.838.     

Quantum discord of electron spins of noninteracting electron gases

In this paper, we analyze the quantum discord of electron spins of noninteracting electron gases. Our results imply that the quantum discord depends on the relative distance between the two electrons and the temperature. By a comparison between the quantum discord and the entanglement of formation, we find that the quantum discord is more robust than the entanglement of formation in the sense that the quantum discord takes a zero value only at discrete points of the range of the relative distance whereas the entanglement of formation can disappear for a finite relative distance.     

Sudden transition from finite temperature spin environments

We investigate the phenomenon of sudden transition from finite temperature critical environments in the study of quantum correlations of a two-qubit system coupled to independent thermal Ising baths. The influence of the temperature and external field of bath on the critical time of sudden transition is also explored. It is found that the phenomenon of sudden transition can be used to detect the critical points of thermal spin environments. How to protect quantum correlations of the system is also examined by applying a series of π-phase pulses.     

Quantum phase transition in an atomic bose gas with a feshbach resonance

We show that in an atomic Bose gas near a Feshbach resonance a quantum phase transition occurs between a phase with only a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate and a phase with both an atomic and a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate. We show that the transition is characterized by an Ising order parameter. We also determine the phase diagram of the gas as a function of magnetic field and temperature: the quantum critical point extends into a line of finite temperature Ising transitions.     

有限温度下一维Gaudin-Yang模型的热力学性质

本文通过数值求解有限温度下一维均匀费米Gaudin-Yang模型的热力学Bethe-ansatz方程, 研究了此模型的基本性质,得到了在给定的温度或给定的相互作用下, 化学势、相互作用、粒子密度和熵的相互变化图像. 对结果分析发现, 在给定温度和相互作用下, 熵随着化学势的变化有一个量子临界区域.     

Zero temperature phase transitions in spin-ladders: Phase diagram and dynamical studies of Cu2(C5H12N2)2Cl4>

In a magnetic field, spin-ladders undergo two zero-temperature phase transitions at the critical fields H_c1 and H_c2. An experimental review of static and dynamical properties of spin-ladders close to these critical points is presented. The scaling functions, universal to all quantum critical points in one-dimension, are extracted from (a) the thermodynamic quantities (magnetization) and (b) the dynamical functions (NMR relaxation). A simple mapping of strongly coupled spin ladders in a magnetic field on the exactly solvable XXZ model enables to make detailed fits and gives an overall understanding of a broad class of quantum magnets in their gapless phase (between H_c1 and H_c2). In this phase, the low temperature divergence of the NMR relaxation demonstrates its Luttinger liquid nature as well as the novel quantum critical regime at higher temperature. The general behavior close these quantum critical points can be tied to known models of quantum magnetism. Received: 13 March 1998 / Received in final form and Accepted: 21 July 1998     

A FINITE TEMPERATURE λφ4 MODEL AND DE SITTER-FRIEDMANN PHASE TRANSITION IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE

In this paper, we propose a simple finite temperature λφ⁴ cosmological model to show that a new type singularity free cosmological model could be established by taing a series of impoftant quantum and statistical effects into consideration such as spontaneoui rymetry breaking, trace anomaly and pirtide creation, symmetry restoration at hish temperature through.phase transition and others. To begin with, the state of the universe would be a cold singu1arity.free and horizon free Beltrami-Anti de Sitter one rather than a hot one. Then associated with the,particle creatipl, the temperature would, become higher and higher and as soon. as the temperature reached a critical value, T_c a second-order phase transition would take place and the universe would transfer to a hot radiation dominated Friedmann state.     

Entropy majorization, thermal adiabatic theorem, and quantum phase transitions

Let a general quantum many-body system at a low temperature adiabatically cross through the vicinity of the system’s quantum critical point. We show that the system’s temperature is significantly suppressed due to both the entropy majorization theorem in quantum information science and the entropy conservation law in reversible adiabatic processes. We take the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model and the spinless fermion system as concrete examples to show that the inverse temperature might become divergent around the systems’ critical points. Since the temperature is a measurable quantity in experiments, it can be used, via reversible adiabatic processes at low temperatures, to detect quantum phase transitions in the perspectives of quantum information science and quantum statistical mechanics.     

Breakdown of weak-field magnetotransport at a metallic quantum critical point

We show how the collapse of an energy scale in a quantum critical metal can lead to physics beyond the weak-field limit usually used to compute transport quantities. For a density-wave transition we show that the presence of a finite magnetic field at the critical point leads to discontinuities in the transport coefficients as temperature tends to zero. The origin of these discontinuities lies in the breakdown of the weak-field Jones-Zener expansion which has previously been used to argue that magnetotransport coefficients are continuous at simple quantum critical points. The presence of potential scattering and magnetic breakdown rounds the discontinuities over a window determined by tauDelta < 1 where Delta is the order parameter and tau is the quasiparticle elastic lifetime.     

Quantum thermal discord in a two-spin-1/2 XXZ model

We study the quantum discord in a two-spin-1/2 XXZ model in thermal equilibrium at temperature T in the presence of an external magnetic field B. Special attention is paid to the dependence of quantum discord on the temperature T and magnetic field B. It is found that quantum thermal discord is more robust than concurrence against temperature, in the sense that quantum thermal discord does not vanish at finite temperatures, but concurrence vanishes completely at a critical temperature.     

A quantal Tolman temperature

The conventional Tolman temperature based on the assumption of the traceless condition of energy-momentum tensor for matter fields is infinite at the horizon if Hawking radiation is involved. However, we note that the temperature associated with Hawking radiation is of relevance to the trace anomaly, which means that the traceless condition should be released. So, a trace anomaly-induced Stefan-Boltzmann law is newly derived by employing the first law of thermodynamics and the property of the temperature independence of the trace anomaly. Then, the Tolman temperature is quantum-mechanically generalized according to the anomaly-induced Stefan-Boltzmann law. In an exactly soluble model, we show that the Tolman factor does not appear in the generalized Tolman temperature which is eventually finite everywhere, in particular, vanishing at the horizon. It turns out that the equivalence principle survives at the horizon with the help of the quantum principle, and some puzzles related to the Tolman temperature are also resolved.     

Magnetothermoelectric response at a superfluid-Mott-insulator transition

We investigate the finite temperature magnetothermoelectric response in the vicinity of a superfluid-Mott-insulator quantum phase transition. We focus on the particle-hole symmetric transitions of the Bose-Hubbard model, and combine Lorentz invariance arguments with quantum Boltzmann calculations. By means of an epsilon expansion, we find that a nonvanishing thermoelectric tensor and a finite thermal transport coefficient are supported in this quantum critical regime. We comment on the singular Nernst effect in this problem.     

Finite-temperature scaling of quantum coherence near criticality in a spin chain

We explore quantum coherence, inherited from Wigner-Yanase skew information, to analyzequantum criticality in the anisotropic XY chain model at finite temperature. Based on theexact solutions of the Hamiltonian, the quantum coherence contained in a nearest-neighborspin pairs reduced density matrix ρ is obtained. The first-order derivative of thequantum coherence is non-analytic around the critical point at sufficient low temperature.The finite-temperature scaling behavior and the universality are verified numerically. Inparticular, the quantum coherence can also detect the factorization transition in such amodel at sufficient low temperature. We also show that quantum coherence contained indistant spin pairs can characterize quantum criticality and factorization phenomena atfinite temperature. Our results imply that quantum coherence can serve as an efficientindicator of quantum criticality in such a model and shed considerable light on therelationships between quantum phase transitions and quantum information theory at finitetemperature.