Entanglement and correlation functions of the quantum Motzkin spin-chain

Abstract

We present exact results on the exactly solvable spin chain of Bravyi et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 207202 (2012)]. This model is a spin one chain and has a Hamiltonian that is local and translationally invariant in the bulk. It has a unique (frustration free) ground state with an energy gap that is polynomially small in the system's size (2n). The half-chain entanglement entropy of the ground state is 1/2 log n + const.5. Here we first write the Hamiltonian in the standard spin-basis representation. We prove that at zero temperature, the magnetization is along the z-direction, i.e., sx = sy = 0 (everywhere on the chain). We then analytically calculate sz and the two-point correlation functions of sz. By analytically diagonalizing the reduced density matrices, we calculate the Schmidt rank, von Neumann, Ŕenyi entanglement entropies for the following: 1. Any partition of the chain into two pieces (not necessarily in the middle) and 2. L consecutive spins centered in the middle. Further, we identify entanglement Hamiltonians (Eqs. (49) and (59)). We prove a small lemma (Lemma (1)) on the combinatorics of lattice paths using the reflection principle to relate and calculate the Motzkin walk "height" to spin expected values. We also calculate the, closely related (scaled), correlation functions of Brownian excursions. The known features of this model are summarized in a table in Sec. I.