• DOI:10.1038/416608a
• Corpus ID: 4329442

Scaling of entanglement close to a quantum phase transition

@article{Osterloh2002ScalingOE,
  title={Scaling of entanglement close to a quantum phase transition},
  author={Andreas Osterloh and Luigi Amico and Giuseppe Falci and Rosario Fazio},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2002},
  volume={416},
  pages={608-610}
}

• A. Osterloh, L. Amico, +1 author R. Fazio
• Published 5 February 2002
• Physics
• Nature

Classical phase transitions occur when a physical system reaches a state below a critical temperature characterized by macroscopic order. Quantum phase transitions occur at absolute zero; they are induced by the change of an external parameter or coupling constant, and are driven by quantum fluctuations. Examples include transitions in quantum Hall systems, localization in Si-MOSFETs (metal oxide silicon field-effect transistors; ref. 4) and the superconductor–insulator transition in two-dimensional systems. Both classical and quantum critical points are governed by a diverging correlation length, although quantum systems possess additional correlations that do not have a classical counterpart. This phenomenon, known as entanglement, is the resource that enables quantum computation and communication. The role of entanglement at a phase transition is not captured by statistical mechanics—a complete classification of the critical many-body state requires the introduction of concepts from quantum information theory. Here we connect the theory of critical phenomena with quantum information by exploring the entangling resources of a system close to its quantum critical point. We demonstrate, for a class of one-dimensional magnetic systems, that entanglement shows scaling behaviour in the vicinity of the transition point.