Density-functional fidelity approach to quantum phase transitions

Abstract

We propose a new approach to quantum phase transitions in terms of the density-functional fidelity, which measures the similarity between density distributions of two ground states in parameter space. The key feature of the approach, as we will show, is that the density-functional fidelity can be measured easily in experiments. Both the validity and versatility of the approach are checked by the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model and the one-dimensional Hubbard model.