Entanglement entropy in quantum spin chains with finite range interaction (Q2517961)

The authors compute the entropy of entanglement of the ground state of a vast class of spin chains whose interaction among the constituent spins is non-local and translation invariant. These systems can be mapped into quadratic chains of fermionic operators by a suitable transformation and are generalizations of the \(XY\) model. The ground state of such systems is studied. Dividing the chain in two halves, the von Neumann entropy in the thermodynamic limit of one of the two parts is computed. At the core of the derivation of the entropy of entanglement is the computation of determinants of Toeplitz matrices for a wide class of \(2\times 2\) matrix symbols. The explicit expressions for such determinants were not available in the literature. The appearance of Toeplitz matrices and their invariants in the study of lattice models is a simple consequence of the translation invariance of the interaction among the spins. Thus, Toeplitz determinants appear in the computations of many other physical quantities like spin-spin correlations or the probability of the emptiness of formation, not only the entropy of entanglement. Thus, results of the paper have consequences that go beyond the application to the study of bipartite entanglement that discussed by the authors.