Dynamics of quantum discord in a quantum critical environment

We study the dynamics of quantum discord (QD) of two qubits independently coupled to an Ising spin chain in a transverse field, which exhibits a quantum phase transition. For this model, we drive the corresponding Kraus operators, obtain the analytic results of QD and compare the dynamics of QD with the dynamics of relative entropy of entanglement nearby the critical point. It is shown that the impact of the quantum criticality environment on QD can be concentrated in a very narrow region nearby the critical point, so it supplies an efficient way to detect the critical points. In the vicinity of the critical point, the evolution of QD is shown to be more complicated than that of entanglement. Furthermore, we find that separable states can also be used to reflect the quantum criticality of the environment.