Universal geometric entanglement close to quantum phase transitions

Under successive renormalization group transformations applied to a quantum state |Psi of finite correlation length xi, there is typically a loss of entanglement after each iteration. How good it is then to replace |Psi by a product state at every step of the process? In this Letter we give a quantitative answer to this question by providing first analytical and general proofs that, for translationally invariant quantum systems in one spatial dimension, the global geometric entanglement per region of size L>xi diverges with the correlation length as (c/12)log(xi/epsilon) close to a quantum critical point with central charge c, where is a cutoff at short distances. Moreover, the situation at criticality is also discussed and an upper bound on the critical global geometric entanglement is provided in terms of a logarithmic function of L.