Entanglement in a periodic quench

We consider a chain of free electrons with periodically switched dimerization and study the entanglement entropy of a segment with the remainder of the system. We show that it evolves in a stepwise manner towards a value proportional to the length of the segment and displays in general slow oscillations. For particular quench periods and full dimerization an explicit solution is given. Relations to equilibrium lattice models are pointed out. (C) 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.