Reexamination of entanglement and the quantum phase transition

We show that, for an exactly solvable quantum spin model, a discontinuity in the first derivative of the ground-state concurrence appears in the absence of a quantum phase transition. It is opposed to the popular belief that the nonanalyticity property of ground-state concurrence can be used to determine quantum phase transitions. We further point out that the analyticity property of the ground-state concurrence in general can be more intricate than that of the ground-state energy. Thus there is no one-to-one correspondence between quantum phase transitions and the nonanalyticity property of the concurrence. Moreover, we show that the von Neumann entropy, as another measure of entanglement, cannot reveal quantum phase transitions in the present model. Therefore, in order to link with quantum phase transitions, some other measures of entanglement are needed.

Figure 1

The ground-state concurrence of the nearest-neighbor spins $C_{i,i+1}$ as a function of $\lambda$ for the $XX$ chain with three-spin interactions in Eq. (1).