We study quenching dynamics of a one-dimensional transverse Ising chain with nearest neighbor antiferromagnetic interactions in the presence of a longitudinal field which renders the model nonintegrable. The dynamics of the spin chain is studied following a slow (characterized by a rate) or sudden quenches of the longitudinal field. Analyzing the temporal evolution of the Loschmidt overlap, we find different possibilities of the presence (or absence) of dynamical phase transitions (DPTs) manifested in the nonanalyticities of the rate function of the return probability. Even though the model is nonintegrable, there are periodic occurrences of DPTs when the system is slowly ramped across the quantum critical point (QCP) as opposed to the ferromagnetic version of the model; this numerical finding is qualitatively explained by mapping the original model to an effective integrable spin model which is appropriate for describing such slow quenches. Furthermore, concerning the sudden quenches, our numerical results show that in some cases, DPTs can be present even when the spin chain is quenched within the same phase or even to the QCP, while in some other situations they completely disappear even after quenching across the QCP. These observations lead us to the conclusion that it is the change in the nature of the ground state that determines the presence of DPTs following a sudden quench.
We investigate the dynamics following sudden quenches across quantum critical points belonging to different universality classes. Specifically, we use matrix product state methods to study the quantum Ising chain in the presence of two additional terms which break integrability. We find that in all models the rate function for the return probability to the initial state becomes a nonanalytic function of time in the thermodynamic limit. This so-called ``dynamical phase transition'' was first observed in a recent work by Heyl, Polkovnikov, and Kehrein [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 135704 (2013)] for the exactly-solvable quantum Ising chain, which can be mapped to free fermions. Our results for ``interacting theories'' indicate that nonanalytic dynamics is a generic feature of sudden quenches across quantum critical points. We discuss potential connections to the dynamics of the order parameter.
Recently, single-site observables have been shown to be useful for probing critical slowing down in sudden quench dynamics [Da\ifmmode \breve{g}\else \u{g}\fi{} et al., Phys. Rev. B 107, L121113 (2023)]. Here, we demonstrate the potential of single-site magnetization as a probe of quantum phase transitions in integrable and nonintegrable transverse-field Ising chains (TFIC). We analytically prove the requirement of zero modes for the quasistationary regime to emerge at a probe site near the edge, and show how this regime gives rise to a nonanalytic behavior in the dynamical order profiles. Our
t-DMRG calculations verify the results of the quench mean-field theory for near-integrable TFIC both with finite-size and finite-time scaling analyses. We find that both finite-size and finite-time analyses suggest a dynamical critical point for a strongly nonintegrable and locally connected TFIC. We finally demonstrate the presence of a quasistationary regime in the power-law interacting TFIC, and extract local dynamical order profiles for TFIC in the long-range Ising universality class with algebraic light cones.
We study the slow quenching dynamics (characterized by an inverse rate ${\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$) of a one-dimensional transverse Ising chain with nearest neighbor ferromagentic interactions across the quantum critical point (QCP) and analyze the Loschmidt overlap measured using the subsequent temporal evolution of the final wave function (reached at the end of the quenching) with the final time-independent Hamiltonian. Studying the Fisher zeros of the corresponding generalized ``partition function,'' we probe nonanalyticities manifested in the rate function of the return probability known as dynamical phase transitions (DPTs). In contrast to the sudden quenching case, we show that DPTs survive in the subsequent temporal evolution following the quenching across two critical points of the model for a sufficiently slow rate; furthermore, an interesting ``lobe'' structure of Fisher zeros emerge. We have also made a connection to topological aspects studying the dynamical topological order parameter $[{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{D}(t)]$ as a function of time
(t) measured from the instant when the quenching is complete. Remarkably, the time evolution of ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{D}(t)$ exhibits drastically different behavior following quenches across a single QCP and two QCPs. In the former case, ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{D}(t)$ increases stepwise by unity at every DPT (i.e., $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{D}=1$). In the latter case, on the other hand, ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{D}(t)$ essentially oscillates between 0 and 1 (i.e., successive DPTs occur with $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{D}=1$ and $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{D}=\ensuremath{-}1$, respectively), except for instants where it shows a sudden jump by a factor of unity when two successive DPTs carry a topological charge of the same sign.
Dynamical phase transitions (DPTs) are generally defined under two different but related categories: DPT-I where the equilibrium value, or long-time average, of the order parameter as a function of the control parameter demonstrates a phase boundary; DPT-II where the Loschmidt return rate shows a cusp singularity in real-time dynamics. Quenched from polarized states, one-point observables have featureless steady state regimes for short-range transverse field Ising models (TFIM), which prevents them from exhibiting DPT-I, unlike long-range TFIM. In this Letter, we incorporate Lieb-Robinson bounds into the definition of DPT by choosing appropriate temporal cutoffs and show that in the lightcone, a quantum phase transition (QPT) far from equilibrium could emerge with an associated scaling law at the vicinity of the transition. More specifically, the observable at the cutoff could exhibit order parameterlike behavior in analogy to equilibrium quantum criticality, however with certain important differences that we discuss in detail. The scaling of the dynamical order parameter at the vicinity is determined via the decay rate of the observable in time, hence rendering the QPT a truly nonequilibrium phase transition. We apply the procedure to both integrable and nonintegrable short-range TFIM and elaborate on how the QPT signature changes with integrability.
We study the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of one-dimensional quantum Ising-like systems, arising from sudden quenches of the Hamiltonian parameter
g driving quantum transitions between disordered and ordered phases. In particular, we consider quenches to values of
g around the critical value
gc, and mainly address the question whether, and how, the quantum transition leaves traces in the evolution of the transverse and longitudinal magnetizations during such a deep out-of-equilibrium dynamics. We shed light on the emergence of singularities in the thermodynamic infinite-size limit, likely related to the integrability of the model. Finite systems in periodic and open boundary conditions develop peculiar power-law finite-size scaling laws related to revival phenomena, but apparently unrelated to the quantum transition, because their main features are generally observed in quenches to generic values of
g. We also investigate the effects of dissipative interactions with an environment, modeled by a Lindblad equation with local decay and pumping dissipation operators within the quadratic fermionic model obtainable by a Jordan-Wigner mapping. Dissipation tends to suppress the main features of the unitary dynamics of closed systems. We finally address the effects of integrability breaking, due to further lattice interactions, such as in anisotropic next-to-nearest-neighbor Ising (ANNNI) models. We show that some qualitative features of the post-quench dynamics persist, in particular, the different behaviors when quenching to quantum ferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases, and the revival phenomena due to the finite size of the system.