Hubbard model as an approximation to the entanglement in nanostructures

We investigate how well the one-dimensional Hubbard model describes the entanglement of particles trapped in a string of quantum wells. We calculate the average single-site entanglement for two particles interacting via a contact interaction and consider the effect of varying the interaction strength and the interwell distance. We compare the results with the ones obtained within the one-dimensional Hubbard model with on-site interaction. We suggest an upper bound for the average single-site entanglement for two electrons in M wells and discuss analytical limits for very large repulsive and attractive interactions. We investigate how the interplay between interaction and potential shape in the quantum-well system dictates the position and size of the entanglement maxima and the agreement with the theoretical limits. Finally, we calculate the spatial entanglement for the quantum-well system and compare it to its average single-site entanglement.