Quantum discord in spin-1/2 Heisenberg chains with Dzyaloshinkii–Moriya interaction

Abstract

We have investigated the quantum discord (QD) of the thermal density matrix of spin-1/2 Heisenberg chains with Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya (DM) interaction. With fermionization technique, we study the mutual effect of DM interaction and the external magnetic field on the QD and the entanglement. Our analysis implies that the DM interaction can enhance the QD while the external magnetic field will shrink the QD. By a comparison between the entanglement and the QD, we find that the QD is more robust to the temperature and to the external magnetic field than the entanglement of formation (EoF) in the sense that the EoF takes a zero value while the QD does not for high temperature and strong external magnetic field. This point confirms the conclusion that there exist some separable states containing non-zero QD.