Introduction to quantum entanglement in many-body systems

Abstract

The quantum mechanics formalism introduced new revolutionary concepts challenging our everyday perceptions. Arguably, quantum entanglement, which explains correlations that cannot be reproduced classically, is the most notable of them. Besides its fundamental aspect, entanglement is also a resource, fueling emergent technologies such as quantum simulators and computers. The purpose of this chapter is to give a pedagogical introduction to the topic with a special emphasis on the multipartite scenario, i.e., entanglement distributed among many degrees of freedom. Due to the combinatorial complexity of this setting, particles can interact and become entangled in a plethora of ways, which we characterize here. We start by providing the necessary mathematical tools and elementary concepts from entanglement theory. A part of this chapter will be devoted to classifying and ordering entangled states. Then, we focus on various entanglement structures useful in condensed-matter theory such as tensor-network states or symmetric states useful for quantum-enhanced sensing. Finally, we discuss state-of-the-art methods to detect and certify such correlations in experiments, with some relevant illustrative examples.