Gr\"uneisen parameter as an entanglement compass

Abstract

The Gr\"uneisen ratio $\Gamma$, i.e., the singular part of the ratio of thermal expansion to the specific heat, has been broadly employed to explore both finite-$T$ and quantum critical points (QCPs). For a genuine quantum phase transition (QPT), thermal fluctuations are absent and thus the thermodynamic $\Gamma$ cannot be employed. We propose a quantum analogue to $\Gamma$ that computes entanglement as a function of a tuning parameter and show that QPTs take place only for quadratic non-diagonal Hamiltonians. We showcase our approach using the quantum 1D Ising model with transverse field and Kane's quantum computer. The slowing down of the dynamics and thus the ``creation of mass'' close to any QCP/QPT is also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, comments are wellcome