English

Scaling of a Mutual-Information Distance in One-dimensional Quantum Spin Chains

Statistical Mechanics 2025-12-02 v1

Abstract

We introduce a geometric scaling relation that characterizes the local scale behavior of correlations using the informational distance dE=K0/Id_E = K_0/\sqrt{I}, where II is the mutual information. We define a geometric conversion factor, GrdEG \equiv \partial_r d_E, which quantifies the local scale. We show that GG relates directly to II via GIκG \propto I^{\kappa}. For systems with power-law correlations I(r)rXI(r) \sim r^{-X}, the metric scaling exponent is κ=1/X1/2\kappa = 1/X - 1/2. A key consequence is that the geometric scale GG is uniform (position-independent) if and only if κ=0\kappa = 0, which occurs precisely at X=2X = 2. This identifies X=2X = 2 as the unique condition for a uniform and metric informational distance. We validate this relation using DMRG simulations of the 1D XXZ chain and exact results for the XX model. We demonstrate two falsifiable diagnostics: (i) G(r)G(r) is flat in the bulk at criticality (X2X \approx 2) but varies strongly when gapped; (ii) a coordinate-agnostic slope test of logG\log G versus logI\log I at the XX benchmark (X=2X = 2) yields κ0\kappa \simeq 0. This approach provides a coordinate-independent method for identifying scaling regimes that helps to reduce ambiguity from non-universal amplitudes and from the fitting choices in standard power-law analyses, and defines a simple post-processing pipeline that can be applied directly to numerical or experimental mutual-information data.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.00649,
  title  = {Scaling of a Mutual-Information Distance in One-dimensional Quantum Spin Chains},
  author = {Beau Leighton-Trudel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.00649},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures. Companion to arXiv:2507.09749; DMRG and exact XX-chain calculations on one-dimensional quantum spin chains. Code and data available at Zenodo (doi: 10.5281/zenodo.17727059)