Entanglement in Far From Equilibrium Stationary States

F. C. Alcaraz, V. Rittenberg, G. Sierra

Published 2009-05-02, updated 2009-09-05Version 2

We present four estimators of the entanglement (or interdepency) of ground-states in which the coefficients are all real nonnegative and therefore can be interpreted as probabilities of configurations. Such ground-states of hermitian and non-hermitian Hamiltonians can be given, for example, by superpositions of valence bond states which can describe equilibrium but also stationary states of stochastic models. We consider in detail the last case. Using analytical and numerical methods we compare the values of the estimators in the directed polymer and the raise and peel models which have massive, conformal invariant and non-conformal invariant massless phases. We show that like in the case of the quantum problem, the estimators verify the area law and can therefore be used to signal phase transitions in stationary states.