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arXiv:cond-mat/0703038 · Physical Review B

Entanglement entropy of the random s=1 Heisenberg chain

Gil Refael, Joel E. Moore

Published Jul 13, 2007• 47 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Random spin chains at quantum critical points exhibit an entanglement entropy between a segment of length $L$ and the rest of the chain that scales as ${\mathrm{log}}_{2}\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}L$ with a universal coefficient. Since for pure quantum critical spin chains this coefficient is fixed by the central charge of the associated conformal field theory, the universal coefficient in the random case can be understood as an effective central charge. In this paper we calculate the entanglement entropy and effective central charge of the spin-1 random Heisenberg model in its random-singlet phase and also at the critical point at which the Haldane phase breaks down. The latter is the first entanglement calculation for an infinite-randomness fixed point that is not in the random-singlet universality class. Our results are consistent with a $c$-theorem for flow between infinite-randomness fixed points. The formalism we use can be generally applied to calculation of quantities that depend on the RG history in $s\ensuremath{\geqslant}1$ random Heisenberg chains.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.76.024419

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Random spin chains at quantum critical points exhibit an entanglement entropy between a segment of length LLL and the rest of the chain that scales as log2L{\mathrm{log}}_{2}\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}Llog2​L with a universal coefficient. Since for pure quantum critical spin chains this coefficient is fixed by the central charge of the associated conformal field theory, the universal coefficient in the random case can be understood as an effective central charge. In this paper we calculate the entanglement entropy and effective central charge of the spin-1 random Heisenberg model in its random-singlet phase and also at the critical point at which the Haldane phase breaks down. The latter is the first entanglement calculation for an infinite-randomness fixed point that is not in the random-singlet universality class. Our results are consistent with a ccc-theorem for flow between infinite-randomness fixed points. The formalism we use can be generally applied to calculation of quantities that depend on the RG history in s\ensuremath⩾1s\ensuremath{\geqslant}1s\ensuremath⩾1 random Heisenberg chains.
For quantum critical spin chains without disorder, it is known that the entanglement of a segment of N>>1 spins with the remainder is logarithmic in N with a prefactor fixed by the central charge of the associated conformal field theory. We show that for a class of strongly random quantum spin chains, the same logarithmic scaling holds for mean entanglement at criticality and defines a critical entropy equivalent to central charge in the pure case. This effective central charge is obtained for Heisenberg, XX, and quantum Ising chains using an analytic real-space renormalization-group approach believed to be asymptotically exact. For these random chains, the effective universal central charge is characteristic of a universality class and is consistent with a c-theorem.
We study the scaling properties of entanglement entropy (EE) near the quantum critical points in interacting random antiferromagnetic (AFM) spin chains. Using density-matrix renormalization group, we compute the half-chain EE near the topological phase transition between the Haldane and random singlet phases in a disordered spin-1 chain. It is found to diverge logarithmically in system size with an effective central charge ceff=1.17(4){c}_{\mathrm{eff}}=1.17(4)ceff​=1.17(4) at the quantum critical point (QCP). Moreover, a scaling analysis of EE yields the correlation length exponent $\ensuremath{\nu}=2.28(5)$. Our unbiased calculation establishes that the QCP is in the universality class of the infinite-randomness fixed point predicted by previous studies based on the strong disorder renormalization group technique. However, in the disordered spin-1/2 Majumdar-Ghosh chain, where a valence bond solid phase is unstable to disorder, the crossover length exponent obtained from a scaling analysis of EE disagrees with the expectation based on the Imry-Ma argument. We provide a possible explanation.
It is known that the entropy of a block of spins of size L embedded in an infinite pure critical spin chain diverges as the logarithm of L with a prefactor fixed by the central charge of the correspondent conformal field theory. For a class of strongly random spin chains, it has been shown that the correspondent block entropy still remains universal and diverges logarithmically with an ‘effective’ central charge. By computing the entanglement entropy for a family of models which includes the N -states random Potts chain and the Z N clock model, we give some definitive answer to recent conjectures about the behaviour of this effective central charge. In particular, we show that the ratio between the entanglement entropy in the pure and in the disordered system is model dependent and we provide a series of critical models where the entanglement entropy grows from the pure to the random case.
We present numerical evidences for the logarithmic scaling of the entanglement entropy in critical random spin chains. Very large scale exact diagonalizations performed at the critical XXXXXX point up to L=2000L=2000L=2000 spins 12\frac{1}{2}21​ lead to a perfect agreement with recent real-space renormalization-group predictions of [Refael and Moore Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 260602 (2004)] for the logarithmic scaling of the entanglement entropy in the random singlet phase with an effective central charge $\stackrel{\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}}{c}=c\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\mathrm{ln}\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}2$. Moreover, we provide the first visual proof of the existence of the random singlet phase with the help of quantum entanglement concept.
We study the entanglement entropy scaling of the XXZ chain. While in the critical XY phase of the XXZ chain the entanglement entropy scales logarithmically with a coefficient that is determined by the associated conformal field theory, at the ferromagnetic point, however, the system is not conformally invariant yet the entanglement entropy still scales logarithmically albeit with a different coefficient. We investigate how such an nontrivial scaling at the ferromagnetic point influences the estimation of the central charge ccc in the critical XY phase. In particular we use the entanglement scaling of the finite or infinite system, as well as the finite-size scaling of the ground state energy to estimate the value of ccc. In addition, the spin-wave velocity and the scaling dimension are also estimated. We show that in all methods the evaluations are influenced by the nearby ferromagnetic point and result in crossover behavior. Finally we discuss how to determine whether the central charge estimation is strongly influenced by the crossover behavior and how to properly evaluate the central charge.
We compute the entropy of entanglement between the first NNN spins and the rest of the system in the ground states of a general class of quantum spin chains. We show that under certain conditions the entropy can be expressed in terms of averages over ensembles of random matrices. These averages can be evaluated, allowing us to prove that at critical points the entropy grows like $\ensuremath{\kappa}{log}_{2}N+\stackrel{\texttildelow{}}{\ensuremath{\kappa}}$ as $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$, where $\ensuremath{\kappa}$ and $\stackrel{\texttildelow{}}{\ensuremath{\kappa}}$ are determined explicitly. In an important class of systems, $\ensuremath{\kappa}$ is equal to one-third of the central charge of an associated Virasoro algebra. Our expression for $\ensuremath{\kappa}$ therefore provides an explicit formula for the central charge.