We study the universality of scaling of entanglement in Shor's factoring
algorithm and in adiabatic quantum algorithms across a quantum phase transition
for both the NP-complete Exact Cover problem as well as the Grover's problem.
The analytic result for Shor's algorithm shows a linear scaling of the entropy
in terms of the number of qubits, therefore difficulting the possibility of an
efficient classical simulation protocol. A similar result is obtained
numerically for the quantum adiabatic evolution Exact Cover algorithm, which
also shows universality of the quantum phase transition the system evolves
nearby. On the other hand, entanglement in Grover's adiabatic algorithm remains
a bounded quantity even at the critical point. A classification of scaling of
entanglement appears as a natural grading of the computational complexity of
simulating quantum phase transitions.Comment: 30 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in PR