Crossover behavior at an exceptional point for quantum entanglement and correlation in a non-Hermitian XY spin system

Non-Hermitian spin systems have attracted extensive interest due to their unconventional magnetic properties, rich entanglement resources, and unusual quantum criticality phenomena. In this paper, based on the exact solution of a one-dimensional non-Hermitian spin-1/2 XY model with rotation-time-reversal (RT) symmetry [X. Z. Zhang et al., Phys. Rev. A 87, 012114 (2013)], we study the ground-state energy density, magnetization, correlation functions, quantum entanglement, and correlation in RT-symmetric and RT-broken phases as well as their characteristics at the exceptional point. We find that the energy density rises faster with the non-Hermitian parameter |γ| in the symmetric region than in the broken one and is elevated rapidly at the exceptional point, and the decay of magnetization has similar results. We analyze the effect of γ on the system and find that the energy density decreases linearly with the external magnetic field h for γ>0, while it is bifurcated when γ=0. In addition, the behaviors of the energy density indicate that the phase transition caused by symmetry breaking is second order, which is further demonstrated by the magnetization, quantum entanglement, etc. The numerical results of the correlation functions surprisingly indicate that the RT-broken phase has quasi-long-range order, which is quite different from the Hermitian XY model. Especially, the crossover behavior of the ground-state entanglement shows that it increases with γ in the symmetric region, which is opposite to the case of the broken one, and its maximum always appears at the exceptional point. The above behaviors at the phase boundary are actually ascribed to the fierce competition between γ and h, which results in a rapid decline of magnetization and the appearance of the maximum of entanglement.