# Correlation amplitude and entanglement entropy in random spin chains

## TL;DR

This study investigates the universal and nonuniversal features of spin-spin correlations and entanglement entropy in random antiferromagnetic XXZ spin chains, revealing universal exponents and prefactors' contributions to surface terms.

## Contribution

It uncovers the universal behavior of correlation decay and entanglement entropy, and explains the nonuniversal prefactors within a renormalization-group framework, including a solvable toy model.

## Key findings

- Correlation exponent ta=2 is universal.
- Prefactors ppa_o and ppa_e are nonuniversal but sum to a universal value.
- Surface terms of entanglement entropy are affected by nonuniversal prefactors.

## Abstract

Using strong-disorder renormalization group, numerical exact diagonalization, and quantum Monte Carlo methods, we revisit the random antiferromagnetic XXZ spin-1/2 chain focusing on the long-length and ground-state behavior of the average time-independent spin-spin correlation function C(l)=\upsilon l^{-\eta}. In addition to the well-known universal (disorder-independent) power-law exponent \eta=2, we find interesting universal features displayed by the prefactor \upsilon=\upsilon_o/3, if l is odd, and \upsilon=\upsilon_e/3, otherwise. Although \upsilon_o and \upsilon_e are nonuniversal (disorder dependent) and distinct in magnitude, the combination \upsilon_o + \upsilon_e = -1/4 is universal if C is computed along the symmetric (longitudinal) axis. The origin of the nonuniversalities of the prefactors is discussed in the renormalization-group framework where a solvable toy model is considered. Moreover, we relate the average correlation function with the average entanglement entropy, whose amplitude has been recently shown to be universal. The nonuniversalities of the prefactors are shown to contribute only to surface terms of the entropy. Finally, we discuss the experimental relevance of our results by computing the structure factor whose scaling properties, interestingly, depend on the correlation prefactors.