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arXiv:1208.4931 · Physical Review Letters

Double Universality of a Quantum Phase Transition in Spinor Condensates: Modification of the Kibble-Żurek Mechanism by a Conservation Law

Tomasz Świsłocki, Emilia Witkowska, Jacek Dziarmaga, Michał Matuszewski

Published Jan 24, 2013• 37 citations
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Abstract

We consider a phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to a phase separated ground state in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms. We demonstrate the occurrence of two scaling laws, for the number of spin domain seeds just after the phase transition, and for the number of spin domains in the final, stable configuration. Only the first scaling can be explained by the standard Kibble-Żurek mechanism. We explain the occurrence of two scaling laws by a model including postselection of spin domains due to the conservation of condensate magnetization.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.110.045303

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We consider a phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to a phase separated ground state in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms. We demonstrate the occurrence of two scaling laws, for the number of spin domain seeds just after the phase transition, and for the number of spin domains in the final, stable configuration. Only the first scaling can be explained by the standard Kibble-Żurek mechanism. We explain the occurrence of two scaling laws by a model including postselection of spin domains due to the conservation of condensate magnetization.
We investigate the dynamics and outcome of a quantum phase transition from an antiferromagnetic to a phase-separated ground state in a spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold atoms. We explicitly demonstrate double universality in the dynamics within experiments with various quench times. Furthermore, we show that spin domains created in the nonequilibrium transition constitute a set of mutually incoherent quasicondensates. The quasicondensates appear to be positioned in a semiregular fashion, which is a result of the conservation of local magnetization during the postselection dynamics.
Abstract Symmetry-breaking quantum phase transitions lead to the production of topological defects or domain walls in a wide range of physical systems. In second-order transitions, these exhibit universal scaling laws described by the Kibble–Zurek mechanism, but for first-order transitions a similarly universal approach is still lacking. Here, we propose a spinor Bose–Einstein condensate as a testbed system where critical scaling behaviour in a first-order quantum phase transition can be understood from generic properties. We demonstrate the applicability of the Kibble–Zurek mechanism for this transition to determine the critical exponents for: (1) the onset of the decay of the metastable state on short times scales, and (2) the number of resulting phase-separated ferromagnetic domains at longer times, as a one-dimensional spin-1 condensate is ramped across a first-order quantum phase transition. The predictions are in excellent agreement with mean-field numerical simulations and provide a paradigm for studying the decay of metastable states in experimentally accessible systems.
The Kibble-Zurek mechanism provides a unified theory to describe the universal scaling laws in the dynamics when a system is driven through a second-order quantum phase transition. However, for first-order quantum phase transitions, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism is usually not applicable. Here, we experimentally demonstrate and theoretically analyze a power-law scaling in the dynamics of a spin-1 condensate across a first-order quantum phase transition when a system is slowly driven from a polar phase to an antiferromagnetic phase. We show that this power-law scaling can be described by a generalized Kibble-Zurek mechanism. Furthermore, by experimentally measuring the spin population, we show the power-law scaling of the temporal onset of spin excitations with respect to the quench rate, which agrees well with our numerical simulation results. Our results open the door for further exploring the generalized Kibble-Zurek mechanism to understand the dynamics across first-order quantum phase transitions.
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It is shown that spin vortices are created through the Kibble-Zurek mechanism in the quantum phase transition of a spin-1 ferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate when the applied magnetic field is quenched to below a critical value. It is also shown that the spin correlation functions have finite correlation lengths, and that the magnetization at widely separated positions grows in random directions, resulting in spontaneous creation of spin vortices. We numerically confirm the scaling laws that the winding number of spin vortices is proportional to the square root of the length of a closed path and, for a slow quench, is proportional to ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\text{Q}}^{\ensuremath{-}1∕6}$ with ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\text{Q}}$ being the quench time. The relevance of spin conservation to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism is discussed.
We investigate the universal dynamics of a continuous magnetic phase transition from a unmagnetized phase to a ferromagnetic phase in a spin-1 spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensate. When the system approaches the critical point, the Landau critical velocity gradually decreases to zero and so the correlation length diverges. Therefore, during the slow passage through the critical point, ferromagnetic domains are spontaneously created according to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. Through calculating the Bogoliubov excitations, we give the Landau critical velocity and the correlation length, from which we derive the Kibble-Zurek scalings. Furthermore, we numerically simulate the critical spatial-temporal dynamics of the bifurcation delay and spontaneous domain formation, and extract the universal scaling exponents. The numerical scalings extracted from the critical spatial-temporal dynamics are very consistent with the scalings derived from the correlation length.