Discord and information deficit in the XX chain

Abstract

We examine the quantum correlations of spin pairs in the cyclic XX spin-1/2 chain in a transverse field through the analysis of the quantum discord, the geometric discord, and the information deficit. It is shown that while these quantities provide the same qualitative information, being nonzero for all temperatures and separations and exhibiting the same type of asymptotic behavior for large temperatures or separations, important differences arise in the minimizing local measurement that defines them. Whereas the quantum discord prefers a spin measurement perpendicular to the transverse field, the geometric discord and information deficit exhibit a perpendicular-to-parallel transition as the field increases, which subsists at all temperatures and for all separations. Moreover, it is shown that such transition signals the change from a Bell state to an aligned separable state of the dominant eigenstate of the reduced density matrix of the pair. Full exact results for both the thermodynamic limit and the finite chain are provided through the Jordan-Wigner fermionization. © 2013 American Physical Society.