Generalized mutual informations of quantum critical chains

TL;DR

This paper investigates the Rényi mutual information in various critical quantum chains, revealing a universal logarithmic behavior with coefficients related to the system's conformal field theory central charge.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical study of the Rényi mutual information based on Rényi divergence across multiple quantum critical models, establishing a universal relation with the central charge.

Findings

Logarithmic leading behavior of mutual information with system size.

Coefficient of the logarithm linearly depends on the central charge.

Results hold for models with discrete and continuous symmetries.

Abstract

We study the R\'enyi mutual information $\tilde{I}_n$ of the ground state of different critical quantum chains. The R\'enyi mutual information definition that we use is based on the well established concept of the R\'enyi divergence. We calculate this quantity numerically for several distinct quantum chains having either discrete $Z(Q)$ symmetries (Q-state Potts model with $Q=2,3,4$ and $Z(Q)$ parafermionic models with $Q=5,6,7,8$ and also Ashkin-Teller model with different anisotropies) or the $U(1)$ continuous symmetries(Klein-Gordon field theory, XXZ and spin-1 Fateev-Zamolodchikov quantum chains with different anisotropies). For the spin chains these calculations were done by expressing the ground-state wavefunctions in two special basis. Our results indicate some general behavior for particular ranges of values of the parameter $n$ that defines $\tilde{I}_n$. For a system, with total size $L$ and subsystem sizes $\ell$ and $L-\ell$, the$\tilde{I}_n$ has a logarithmic leading behavior given by $\frac{\tilde{c}_n}{4}\log(\frac{L}{\pi}\sin(\frac{\pi \ell}{L}))$ where the coefficient $\tilde{c}_n$ is linearly dependent on the central charge $c$ of the underlying conformal field theory (CFT) describing the system's critical properties.