One of the main quests of many-body physics and quantum information is to understand quantum phases and in particular the entanglement present in them. In this work, Zhao Zhang and Amr Ahmadain, working with Prof. Klich, have uncovered a novel quantum phase transition in spin chains where entanglement entropy jumps into a critical phase exhibiting an extraordinary amount of entanglement. This discovery pushes the boundaries of the possible range of nonlocal quantum correlations and opens a door to fundamental and practical questions about the interplay of entanglement and locality in many-body systems.

The research has been published in PNAS:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/04/26/1702029114.full?sid=eb9972f8-9dd5-4215-8a29-990628b164a5