Density-Functional Fidelity Approach to Quantum Phase Transitions

We propose a new approach to quantum phase transitions in terms of the density-functional fidelity, which measures the similarity between density distributions of two ground states in parameter space. The key feature of the approach is such that the density-functional fidelity can be measured easily in experiments. Both the validity and versatility of the approach are checked by the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model and the one-dimensional Hubbard model.