Single-site entanglement of fermions at a quantum phase transition

Abstract

We show that the single-site entanglement of a generic spin-1/2 fermionic lattice system can be used as a reliable marker of a finite-order quantum phase transition, given certain provisos. We discuss the information contained in the single-site entanglement measure, and provide illustrations from the Mott--Hubbard metal-insulator transitions of the one-dimensional (1D) Hubbard model, and the (1D) Hubbard model with long-range hopping.