Laboratoire de Physique Théorique
Toulouse - UMR 5152

The strange correlator has been proposed as way to detect short-range entangled states in one- and two-dimensional systems. It takes the form of a spin-spin correlation function, computed as a mixed overlap between the state of interest and a trivial local product state. An interesting detail is that the strange correlator is computed in the featureless bulk but gives information about the character of the system’s edge modes. I’ll give some numerical examples of applications to various Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki states and discuss how one can directly evaluate the strange correlator within the valence bond loop gas framework.