No Arabic abstract
We investigate the quench dynamics of an open quantum system involving a quantum phase transition. In the isolated case, the quench dynamics involving the phase transition exhibits a number of scaling relations with the quench rate as predicted by the celebrated Kibble-Zurek mechanism. In contact with an environment however, these scaling laws breakdown and one may observe an anti-Kibble-Zurek behavior: slower ramps lead to less adiabatic dynamics, increasing thus non-adiabatic effects with the quench time. In contrast to previous works, we show here that such anti-Kibble-Zurek scaling can acquire a universal form in the sense that it is determined by the equilibrium critical exponents of the phase transition, provided the excited states of the system exhibit singular behavior, as observed in fully-connected models. This demonstrates novel universal scaling laws granted by a system-environment interaction in a critical system. We illustrate these findings in two fully-connected models, namely, the quantum Rabi and the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models. In addition, we discuss the impact of non-linear ramps and finite-size systems.
Geometric quantum speed limits quantify the trade-off between the rate with which quantum states can change and the resources that are expended during the evolution. Counterdiabatic driving is a unique tool from shortcuts to adiabaticity to speed up quantum dynamics while completely suppressing nonequilibrium excitations. We show that the quantum speed limit for counterdiabatically driven systems undergoing quantum phase transitions fully encodes the Kibble-Zurek mechanism by correctly predicting the transition from adiabatic to impulse regimes. Our findings are demonstrated for three scenarios, namely the transverse field Ising, the Landau-Zener, and the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models.
We study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of $p$-wave superconducting quantum wires with long-range interactions, when the chemical potential is linearly ramped across the topological phase transition. We show that the heat produced after the quench scales with the quench rate $delta$ according to the scaling law $delta^theta$, where the exponent $theta$ depends on the power law exponent of the long-range interactions. We identify the parameter regimes where this scaling can be cast in terms of the universal equilibrium critical exponents and can thus be understood within the Kibble-Zurek framework. When the electron hopping decays more slowly in space than pairing, it dominates the equilibrium scaling. Surprisingly, in this regime the dynamical critical behaviour arises only from paring and, thus, exhibits anomalous dynamical universality unrelated to equilibrium scaling. The discrepancy from the expected Kibble-Zurek scenario can be traced back to the presence of multiple universal terms in the equilibrium scaling functions of long-range interacting systems close to a second order critical point.
The Kibble-Zurek (KZ) mechanism describes the generations of topological defects when a system undergoes a second-order phase transition via quenches. We study the holographic KZ scaling using holographic superconductors. The scaling can be understood analytically from a scaling analysis of the bulk action. The argument is reminiscent of the scaling analysis of the mean-field theory but is more subtle and is not entirely obvious. This is because the scaling is not the one of the original bulk theory but is an emergent one that appears only at the critical point. The analysis is also useful to determine the dynamic critical exponent $z$.
Quantum phase transitions (QPTs) involve transformations between different states of matter that are driven by quantum fluctuations. These fluctuations play a dominant role in the quantum critical region surrounding the transition point, where the dynamics are governed by the universal properties associated with the QPT. While time-dependent phenomena associated with classical, thermally driven phase transitions have been extensively studied in systems ranging from the early universe to Bose Einstein Condensates, understanding critical real-time dynamics in isolated, non-equilibrium quantum systems is an outstanding challenge. Here, we use a Rydberg atom quantum simulator with programmable interactions to study the quantum critical dynamics associated with several distinct QPTs. By studying the growth of spatial correlations while crossing the QPT, we experimentally verify the quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism (QKZM) for an Ising-type QPT, explore scaling universality, and observe corrections beyond QKZM predictions. This approach is subsequently used to measure the critical exponents associated with chiral clock models, providing new insights into exotic systems that have not been understood previously, and opening the door for precision studies of critical phenomena, simulations of lattice gauge theories and applications to quantum optimization.
We study the Kibble-Zurek mechanism in a 2d holographic p-wave superconductor model with a homogeneous source quench on the critical point. We derive, on general grounds, the scaling of the Kibble-Zurek time, which marks breaking-down of adiabaticity. It is expressed in terms of four critical exponents, including three static and one dynamical exponents. Via explicit calculations within a holographic model, we confirm the scaling of the Kibble-Zurek time and obtain the scaling functions in the quench process. We find the results are formally similar to a homogeneous quench in a higher dimensional holographic s-wave superconductor. The similarity is due to the special type of quench we take. We expect differences in the quench dynamics if the condition of homogeneous source and dominance of critical mode are relaxed.