Global entanglement and quantum criticality in spin chains

Entanglement in quantum XY spin chains of arbitrary length is investigated via a recently-developed global measure suitable for generic quantum many-body systems. The entanglement surface is determined over the phase diagram, and found to exhibit structure richer than expected. Near the critical line, the entanglement is peaked (albeit analytically), consistent with the notion that entanglement--the non-factorization of wave functions--reflects quantum correlations. Singularity does, however, accompany the critical line, as revealed by the divergence of the field-derivative of the entanglement along the line. The form of this singularity is dictated by the universality class controlling the quantum phase transition.