Symmetry-enforced minimal entanglement and correlation in quantum spin chains

TL;DR

This paper investigates the fundamental limits on entanglement and correlation in quantum spin chains imposed by $SO(3)$ and translation symmetries, revealing minimal entanglement bounds and their relation to correlation length.

Contribution

It derives explicit lower bounds on the minimal entanglement entropy enforced by symmetries in quantum spin-$J$ chains, highlighting the non-vanishing correlation length of such states.

Findings

Minimal entanglement bounds depend on spin $J$ and symmetry constraints.

States with minimal entanglement cannot have zero correlation length.

Minimal entanglement states may differ from those with minimal correlation length.

Abstract

The interplay between symmetry, entanglement and correlation is an interesting and important topic in quantum many-body physics. Within the framework of matrix product states, in this paper we study the minimal entanglement and correlation enforced by the $SO(3)$ spin rotation symmetry and lattice translation symmetry in a quantum spin-$J$ chain, with $J$ a positive integer. When neither symmetry is spontaneously broken, for a sufficiently long segment in a sufficiently large closed chain, we find that the minimal R\'enyi-$\alpha$ entropy compatible with these symmetries is $\min\{ -\frac{2}{\alpha-1}\ln(\frac{1}{2^\alpha}({1+\frac{1}{(2J+1)^{\alpha-1}}})), 2\ln(J+1) \}$, for any $\alpha\in\mathbb{R}^+$. In an infinitely long open chain with such symmetries, for any $\alpha\in\mathbb{R}^+$ the minimal R\'enyi-$\alpha$ entropy of half of the system is $\min\{ -\frac{1}{\alpha-1}\ln(\frac{1}{2^\alpha}({1+\frac{1}{(2J+1)^{\alpha-1}}})), \ln(J+1) \}$. When $\alpha\rightarrow 1$, these lower bounds give the symmetry-enforced minimal von Neumann entropies in these setups. Moreover, we show that no state in a quantum spin-$J$ chain with these symmetries can have a vanishing correlation length. Interestingly, the states with the minimal entanglement may not be a state with the minimal correlation length.