Geometric entanglement of critical XXZ and Ising chains and Affleck-Ludwig boundary entropies

TL;DR

This paper investigates the universal subleading constant in the geometric entanglement scaling of critical XXZ and Ising chains, relating it to boundary entropies and confirming universality through analytical and numerical methods.

Contribution

It establishes a connection between the subleading constant in geometric entanglement and Affleck-Ludwig boundary entropy, confirming its universality and providing exact lattice calculations.

Findings

Subleading constant is universal and depends on the compactification radius.

Exact lattice calculation at the XX point confirms the theoretical prediction.

Geometrical entanglement relates to boundary entropy for different boundary conditions.

Abstract

We study the geometrical entanglement of the XXZ chain in its critical regime. Recent numerical simulations [Q.-Q. Shi, R. Or\'us, J. O. Fj\ae restad and H.-Q Zhou, New J. Phys. {\bf 12}, 025008 (2010)] indicate that it scales linearly with system size, and that the first subleading correction is constant, which was argued to be possibly universal. In this work, we confirm the universality of this number, by relating it to the Affleck-Ludwig boundary entropy corresponding to a Neumann boundary condition for a free compactified field. We find that the subleading constant is a simple function of the compactification radius, in agreement with the numerics. As a further check, we compute it exactly on the lattice at the XX point. We also discuss the case of the Ising chain in transverse field and show that the geometrical entanglement is related to the Affleck-Ludwig boundary entropy associated to a ferromagnetic boundary condition.