Clustered quantum materials provide a new platform for the experimental study of many- body entanglement. Here we address a simple model featuring N interacting spins in a transverse field. The field can induce an entanglement transition (ET). We calculate the magnetisation, low-energy gap and neutron-scattering cross-section and find that the ET has distinct signatures, detectable at temperatures as high as 10% of the interaction strength. Unlike a quantum critical point, the signatures of the ET are stronger for smaller clusters.
The lack of methods to experimentally detect and quantify entanglement in quantum matter impedes our ability to identify materials hosting highly entangled phases, such as quantum spin liquids. We thus investigate the feasibility of using inelastic neutron scattering (INS) to implement a model-independent measurement protocol for entanglement based on three entanglement witnesses: one-tangle, two-tangle, and quantum Fisher information (QFI). We perform high-resolution INS measurements on Cs_{2}CoCl_{4}, a close realization of the S=1/2 transverse-field XXZ spin chain, where we can control entanglement using the magnetic field, and compare with density-matrix renormalization group calculations for validation. The three witnesses allow us to infer entanglement properties and make deductions about the quantum state in the material. We find QFI to be a particularly robust experimental probe of entanglement, whereas the one and two-tangles require more careful analysis. Our results lay the foundation for a general entanglement detection protocol for quantum spin systems.
Entanglement between individual spins can be detected by using thermodynamics quantities as entanglement witnesses. This applies to collective spins also, provided that their internal degrees of freedom are frozen, as in the limit of weakly coupled nanomagnets. Here, we extend such approach to the detection of entanglement between subsystems of a spin cluster, beyond such weak-coupling limit. The resulting inequalities are violated in spin clusters with different geometries, thus allowing the detection of zero- and finite-temperature entanglement. Under relevant and experimentally verifiable conditions, all the required expectation values can be traced back to correlation functions of individual spins, which are now made selectively available by four-dimensional inelastic neutron scattering.
In this paper, we study three specific aspects of entanglement in small spin clusters. We first study the effect of inhomogeneous exchange coupling strengths on the entanglement properties of the
S=21 antiferromagnetic linear chain tetramer compound
NaCuAsO4. The entanglement gap temperature
TE is found to have a nonmonotonic dependence on the value of $\ensuremath{\alpha}$, the exchange coupling inhomogeneity parameter. We next determine the variation of
TE as a function of
S for a spin dimer, a trimer, and a tetrahedron. The temperature
TE is found to increase as a function of
S but the scaled entanglement gap temperature
tE goes to zero as
S becomes large. Last, we study a spin-1 dimer compound to illustrate the quantum complementarity relation. We show that in the experimentally realizable parameter region, magnetization and entanglement plateaus appear simultaneously at low temperatures as a function of the magnetic field. Also, the sharp increase in one quantity as a function of the magnetic field is accompanied by a sharp decrease in the other so that the quantum complementarity relation is not violated.
Exchange interactions in spin systems can give rise to quantum entanglement in the ground and thermal states of the systems. We consider a spin tetramer, with spins of magnitude
21, in which the spins interact via nearest-neighbor, diagonal, and four-spin interactions of strength
J1,
J2, and
K, respectively. The ground- and thermal-state entanglement properties of the tetramer are calculated analytically in the various limiting cases. Both bipartite and multipartite entanglements are considered and a signature of the quantum phase transition (QPT), in terms of the entanglement ratio, is identified. The first-order QPT is accompanied by discontinuities in the nearest-neighbor and diagonal concurrences. The magnetic properties of a
S=21 antiferromagnetic polyoxovanadate compound V12 are well explained by tetramers, with
J2=0,
K=0, in which the spins interact via the isotropic Heisenberg exchange interaction Hamiltonian. Treating the magnetic susceptibility $\ensuremath{\chi}$ as an entanglement witness (EW), an estimate of the lower bound of the critical entanglement temperature
Tc below which entanglement is present in the experimental compound, is determined. Two other cases considered include the symmetric tetramer---i.e., tetrahedron
(J1=J2,K=0)---and the symmetric trimer. In both the cases, there is no entanglement between a pair of spins in the thermal state but multipartite entanglement is present. A second EW based on energy provides an estimate of the entanglement temperature
TE below which the thermal state is definitely entangled. This EW detects bipartite entanglement in the case of the tetramer describing a square of spins (the case of V12 ) and multipartite entanglement in the cases of the tetrahedron and symmetric trimer.
Low dimensional quantum magnets which display a collective singlet ground state and a gap in their magnetic excitation spectrum provide a framework for much exotic phase behavior in new materials, with high temperature superconductivity being the best appreciated example. Neutron scattering techniques can be applied to study a wide variety of problems in condensed matter physics. These techniques are particularly useful as applied to understanding the magnetic properties of quantum magnets that display exotic phases. SrCu2(BO3)2, is a rare example of a two-dimensional quantum magnet for which an exact theoretical solution describing its ground state is known to be a collective singlet. Previous high resolution neutron scattering measurements identified the most prominent features of the spin excitation spectrum in SrCu2(BO3)2, including the presence of one and two triplet excitations and weak dispersion characteristic of subleading terms in the spin Hamiltonian. The resemblance between the spin gap behavior in the Mott insulator SrCu2(BO3)2 and that associated with high temperature superconductors motivated the consideration of the significance of doping in order to understand the properties of this quantum magnetic system. For this reason, a series of neutron scattering studies on doped SrCu2(BO3)2 were initiated. These series of investigations began with the performance of neutron scattering measurements on a SrCu(2-x)Mgx(BO3)2 single crystal in order to introduce magnetic vacancies to the system. These results revealed the presence of new spin excitations within the singlet-triplet gap of this system. Application of a magnetic field induces Zeeman-split states associated with un-paired spins which exist as a consequence of doping with quenched non-magnetic impurities. Additional substantial broadening of both the one and two triplet excitations is observed in the doped system as compared to the pure system. Theoretical calculations are shown to qualitatively account for these features. These studies were extended to neutron scattering measurements on Sr(1-x)LaxCu2(BO3)2, with an aim of introducing charged carriers into this system. The broadening of the one and two triplet excitations is observed and compared to the thermally induced finite lifetime of the pure system. The temperature dependence of this broadening in Sr(1-x)LaxCu2(BO3)2 is different compared to that observed in both SrCu2(BO3)2 and SrCu(2-x)Mgx(BO3)2. It has also been suggested that there is a relation between the spin-lattice interaction in SrCu2(BO3)2 and the magnetic dynamics at low temperatures and high magnetic fields. For this reason there has been increased interest in the study of the crystalline structure and vibrational modes of SrCu2(BO3)2. In order to investigate the role of the lattice in the formation of the singlet ground state in SrCu2(BO3)2, a series of low and high energy neutron scattering measurements were carried out on this system to study both the crystalline structure as well as the normal modes of vibration of the lattice, the transverse acoustic and optical phonons. Transverse acoustic phonons with energies comparable to and higher than the onset of the two triplet continuum show substantially increased lifetimes on entering the singlet ground state below ~ 10 K. This may indicate the removal of the decay channel for the phonons due to the gapping of the spin excitation spectrum in SrCu2(BO3)2 at low temperatures. In high energy inelastic neutron scattering we observe broadening of optic phonons in the ~ 52 to 65 meV region on entering the low temperature singlet ground state. Additionally, the magnetic properties of CuMoO4, which is a triclinic quantum magnet system based on S=1/2 moments at the Cu2+ site, were studied using elastic and inelastic neutron scattering experiments. This material exhibits a first order structural phase transition at ~ 190 K as well as a magnetic phase transition at ~ 1.75 K. We were primarily interested in the low temperature magnetic properties of this material. Magnetization and heat capacity measurements as well as elastic and inelastic neutron scattering measurements were conducted on this system within the low temperature ordered phase. These studies confirm that this material has a magnetic phase transition at ~ 1.7 K. Neutron scattering results indicate that this magnetically ordered phase is characterized by a doubling of the a axis. Inelastic neutron scattering measurements revealed a gapped magnetic excitation spectrum in zero magnetic field, which could be filled in by the application of magnetic fields approaching 7 T.