Topological entanglement properties of disconnected partitions in the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model

Abstract

We study the disconnected entanglement entropy, S^\mathrm{D}SD, of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. S^\mathrm{D}SD is a combination of both connected and disconnected bipartite entanglement entropies that removes all area and volume law contributions and is thus only sensitive to the non-local entanglement stored within the ground state manifold. Using analytical and numerical computations, we show that S^\mathrm{D}SD behaves like a topological invariant, i.e., it is quantized to either 00 or 2\log(2)2log(2) in the topologically trivial and non-trivial phases, respectively. These results also hold in the presence of symmetry-preserving disorder. At the second-order phase transition separating the two phases, S^\mathrm{D}SD displays a finite-size scaling behavior akin to those of conventional order parameters, that allows us to compute entanglement critical exponents. To corroborate the topological origin of the quantized values of S^\mathrm{D}SD, we show how the latter remain quantized after applying unitary time evolution in the form of a quantum quench, a characteristic feature of topological invariants associated with particle-hole symmetry.