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Multipartite Entanglement in the Random Ising Chain

Quantifying entanglement of multiple subsystems is a challenging open problem in interacting quantum systems. Here, we focus on two subsystems of length $\ell$ separated by a distance $r=α\ell$ and quantify their entanglement negativity (${\cal E}$) and mutual information (${\cal I}$) in critical random Ising chains. Both the disorder averaged ${\cal E}$ and ${\cal I}$ are found to be scale-invariant and universal, i.e. independent of the form of disorder. We find a constant ${\cal E}(α)$ and ${\cal I}(α)$ over any distances, using the asymptotically exact strong disorder renormalization group method. Our results are qualitatively different from both those in the clean Ising model and random spin chains of a singlet ground state, like the spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ random Heisenberg chain and the random XX chain. While for random singlet states ${\cal I}(α)/{\cal E}(α)=2$, in the random Ising chain this universal ratio is strongly $α$-dependent. This deviation between systems contrasts with the behavior of the entanglement entropy of a single subsystem, for which the various random critical chains and clean models give the same qualitative behavior. Therefore, studying multipartite entanglement provides additional universal information in random quantum systems, beyond what we can learn from a single subsystem.