Entanglement and Entropy in a Spin-Boson Quantum Phase Transition

Abstract

We investigate the entanglement properties of an ensemble of atoms interacting with a single bosonic field mode via the Dicke (superradiance) Hamiltonian. The model exhibits a quantum phase transition and a well-understood thermodynamic limit, allowing the identification of both quantum and semi-classical many-body features in the behaviour of the entanglement. We consider the entanglement between the atoms and the field, an investigation initiated in [N. Lambert, C. Emary and T. Brandes, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 92}, %073602 (2004)]. In the thermodynamic limit, we give exact results for all entanglement partitions and observe a logarithmic divergence of the atom-field entanglement, and discontinuities in the average linear entropy.