Bell correlations at Ising quantum critical points

Abstract: When a collection of distant observers share an entangled quantum state, the statistical correlations among their measurements may violate a many-body Bell inequality, demonstrating a non-local behavior. Focusing on the Ising model in a transverse-field with power-law ($1/r^\alpha$) ferromagnetic interactions, we show that a permutationally invariant Bell inequality based on two-body correlations is violated in the vicinity of the quantum-critical point. This observation, obtained via analytical spin-wave calculations and numerical density-matrix renormalization group computations, is traced back to the squeezing of collective-spin fluctuations generated by quantum-critical correlations. We observe a maximal violation for infinite-range interactions ($\alpha=0$), namely when interactions and correlations are themselves permutationally invariant.