0000000001207769
AUTHOR
S. M. Giampaolo
Entanglement quantification by local unitaries
Invariance under local unitary operations is a fundamental property that must be obeyed by every proper measure of quantum entanglement. However, this is not the only aspect of entanglement theory where local unitaries play a relevant role. In the present work we show that the application of suitable local unitary operations defines a family of bipartite entanglement monotones, collectively referred to as "mirror entanglement". They are constructed by first considering the (squared) Hilbert-Schmidt distance of the state from the set of states obtained by applying to it a given local unitary. To the action of each different local unitary there corresponds a different distance. We then minimi…
Quench of symmetry broken ground states
We analyze the problem of how different ground states associated to the same set of the Hamiltonian parameters evolve after a sudden quench. To realize our analysis we define a quantitative approach to the local distinguishability between different ground states of a magnetically ordered phase in terms of the trace distance between the reduced density matrices obtained projecting two ground states in the same subset. Before the quench, regardless the particular choice of the subset, any system in a magnetically ordered phase is characterized by ground states that are locally distinguishable. On the other hand, after the quench, the maximum of the distinguishability shows an exponential deca…
Scaling of the R\'enyi entropies in gapped quantum spin systems: Entanglement-driven order beyond symmetry breaking
We investigate the scaling of the R\'enyi $\alpha$-entropies in one-dimensional gapped quantum spin models. We show that the block entropies with $\alpha > 2$ violate the area law monotonicity and exhibit damped oscillations. Depending on the existence of a factorized ground state, the oscillatory behavior occurs either below factorization or it extends indefinitely. The anomalous scaling corresponds to an entanglement-driven order that is independent of ground-state degeneracy and is revealed by a nonlocal order parameter defined as the sum of the single-copy entanglement over all blocks.
Classical nature of ordered phases: origin of spontaneous symmetry breaking
We investigate the nature of spontaneous symmetry breaking in complex quantum systems by conjecturing that the maximally symmetry breaking quantum ground states are the most classical ones corresponding to an ordered phase. We make this argument quantitatively precise by showing that the ground states which realize the maximum breaking of the Hamiltonian symmetries are the only ones that: I) are always locally convertible, i.e. can be obtained from all other ground states by local operations and classical communication, while the reverse is never possible; II) minimize the monogamy inequality for bipartite entanglement; III) minimize quantum correlations, as measured by the quantum discord,…
Entanglement and quantum correlations in many-body systems: a unified approach via local unitary operations
Local unitary operations allow for a unifying approach to the quantification of quantum correlations among the constituents of a bipartite quantum system. For pure states, the distance between a given state and its image under least-perturbing local unitary operations is a bona fide measure of quantum entanglement, the so-called entanglement of response, which can be extended to mixed states via the convex roof construction. On the other hand, when defined directly on mixed states perturbed by local unitary operations, such a distance turns out to be a bona fide measure of quantum correlations, the so-called discord of response. Exploiting this unified framework, we perform a detailed compa…
Classical nature of ordered quantum phases and origin of spontaneous symmetry breaking
We analyse the nature of spontaneous symmetry breaking in complex quantum systems by investigating the long-standing conjecture that the maximally symmetry-breaking quantum ground states are the most classical ones corresponding to a globally ordered phase. We make this argument quantitatively precise by comparing different local and global indicators of classicality and quantumness, respectively in symmetry-breaking and symmetry-preserving quantum ground states. We first discuss how naively comparing local, pairwise entanglement and discord apparently leads to the opposite conclusion. Indeed, we show that in symmetry-preserving ground states the two-body entanglement captures only a modest…