Universal Behavior in Entanglement Entropy Reveals Quantum Criticality and Underlying Symmetry Breaking

TL;DR

This paper uncovers universal patterns in entanglement entropy that reveal quantum critical points and symmetry breaking in many-body systems, introducing a new scaling relation and insights into phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a one-parameter scaling relation between derivative entanglement entropy and system size at criticality, enabling extraction of critical exponents.

Findings

DEE scales with system size at quantum critical points

EE peaks at symmetry-enhanced first-order transitions

New paradigm for analyzing quantum phase transitions using EE

Abstract

Entanglement plays a key role in quantum physics, but how much information it can extract from many-body systems is still an open question, particularly regarding quantum criticalities and emergent symmetries. In this work, we systematically study the entanglement entropy (EE) and derivative entanglement entropy (DEE) near quantum phase transitions in various quantum many-body systems. A one-parameter scaling relation between the DEE and system size at the critical point has been derived for the first time, which successfully obtains the critical exponent via data collapse. Furthermore, we find that the EE peaks at the (emergent) symmetry enhanced first-order transition, reflecting higher symmetry breaking. This work provides a new paradigm for quantum many-body research from the perspective of EE and DEE.