Many papers (and grant proposal) about quantum information and quantum entanglement in many-body systems contain a version of the following sentence in their introduction:
"It is very efficient to use quantities originally defined in the context of quantum information, such as entanglement measures, to detect and characterize quantum phase transitions in many-body systems. "
In this JC, I will explain the meaning of this sentence, assuming no knowledge on quantum entanglement, by reviewing relevant seminal papers, and discuss some new exciting results in the field.
