We introduce the operator fidelity and propose to use its susceptibility for characterizing the sensitivity of quantum systems to perturbations. Two typical models are addressed: one is the transverse Ising model exhibiting a quantum phase transition
, and the other is the one dimensional Heisenberg spin chain with next-nearest-neighbor interactions, which has the degeneracy. It is revealed that the operator fidelity susceptibility is a good indicator of quantum criticality regardless of the system degeneracy.
