Abstract
We investigate quantum phase transitions and quantum coherence in a quantum compass chain under an alternating transverse magnetic field. The model can be analytically solved by the Jordan-Wigner transformation and this solution shows that it is equivalent to a two-component one-dimensional (1D) Fermi gas on a lattice. We explore mutual effects of the staggered magnetic interaction and multi-site interactions on the energy spectra and analyze the ground state phase diagram. We use quantum coherence measures to identify the quantum phase transitions. Our results show that l₁ norm of coherence fails to detect faithfully the quantum critical points separating a gapped phase from a gapless phase, which can be pinpointed exactly by relative entropy of coherence. Jensen-Shannon divergence is somewhat obscure at exception points. We also propose an experimental realization of such a 1D system using superconducting quantum circuits.