Schmidt gap in random spin chains

Abstract

We numerically investigate the low-lying entanglement spectrum of the ground state of random one-dimensional spin chains obtained after partition of the chain into two equal halves. We consider two paradigmatic models: the spin-1/2 random transverse field Ising model, solved exactly, and the spin-1 random Heisenberg model, simulated using the density matrix renormalization group. In both cases we analyze the mean Schmidt gap, defined as the difference between the two largest eigenvalues of the reduced density matrix of one of the two partitions, averaged over many disorder realizations. We find that the Schmidt gap detects the critical point very well and scales with universal critical exponents.