Density of defects and the scaling law of the entanglement entropy in quantum phase transition of one dimensional spin systems induced by a quench

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quantum phase transitions in one-dimensional spin systems, induced by a quench, affect defect density and entanglement entropy, revealing universal scaling laws and underlying conformal symmetry.

Contribution

It introduces a dynamical framework linking nonadiabaticity, spin fluctuations, and Berry phase to defect formation and entanglement entropy scaling in quenched spin chains.

Findings

Defect density scales universally across models.

Entanglement entropy increases logarithmically with block size.

Conformal symmetry is identified at criticality in regularized models.

Abstract

We have studied quantum phase transition induced by a quench in different one dimensional spin systems. Our analysis is based on the dynamical mechanism which envisages nonadiabaticity in the vicinity of the critical point. This causes spin fluctuation which leads to the random fluctuation of the Berry phase factor acquired by a spin state when the ground state of the system evolves in a closed path. The two-point correlation of this phase factor is associated with the probability of the formation of defects. In this framework, we have estimated the density of defects produced in several one dimensional spin chains. At the critical region, the entanglement entropy of a block of $L$ spins with the rest of the system is also estimated which is found to increase logarithmically with $L$. The dependence on the quench time puts a constraint on the block size $L$. It is also pointed out that the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model in point-splitting regularized form appears as a combination of the XXX model and Ising model with magnetic field in the negative z-axis. This unveils the underlying conformal symmetry at criticality which is lost in the sharp point limit. Our analysis shows that the density of defects as well as the scaling behavior of the entanglement entropy follows a universal behavior in all these systems.