Universal information of critical quantum spin chains from wavefunction overlap

Abstract

Given a critical quantum spin chain, we show how universal information about its quantum critical point can be extracted from wavefunction overlaps. More specifically, we consider overlap between low-energy eigenstates of the spin chain Hamiltonian with different boundary conditions, namely periodic boundary conditions and open boundary conditions. We show that such overlaps decay polynomially with the system size, where the exponent only depends on the central charge. Furthermore, the bulk-to-boundary operator product expansion (OPE) coefficients can be extracted from the overlaps involving excited states. We illustrate the proposal with the Ising model and the three-state Potts model.