Protecting quantum correlations of the XXZ model by topological boundary conditions.

The differences between the XXZ model with topological and periodical boundary conditions were compared by studying their entanglement, quantum discord, and critical temperature above which the entanglement vanishes. It shows that the different boundary conditions mainly affect bipartite quantum correlations of the boundary spins rather than that of other spin pairs. The topological boundary spins can protect entanglement and discord against strong magnetic fields while the periodical boundary spins can protect them against nonuniform magnetic fields. Compared with the periodical XXZ model, the critical temperature is significantly improved for the topological XXZ model. The topological XXZ model also allows us to improve significantly its critical temperature by increasing the strength of magnetic field, which is not feasible for the periodical XXZ model. It is therefore more promising for preparing entangled states at high temperature in the topological XXZ model.