Scaling of a Mutual-Information Distance in One-dimensional Quantum Spin Chains
Abstract
We introduce a geometric scaling relation that characterizes the local scale behavior of correlations using the informational distance , where is the mutual information. We define a geometric conversion factor, , which quantifies the local scale. We show that relates directly to via . For systems with power-law correlations , the metric scaling exponent is . A key consequence is that the geometric scale is uniform (position-independent) if and only if , which occurs precisely at . This identifies 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) is flat in the bulk at criticality () but varies strongly when gapped; (ii) a coordinate-agnostic slope test of versus at the XX benchmark () yields . 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.
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)