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arXiv:1802.00020 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Constructing effective free energies for dynamical quantum phase transitions in the transverse-field Ising chain

Daniele Trapin, Markus Heyl

Published May 16, 2018• 20 citations
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Abstract

The theory of dynamical quantum phase transitions represents an attempt to extend the concept of phase transitions to the far from equilibrium regime. While there are many formal analogies to conventional transitions, it is a major question to which extent it is possible to formulate a nonequilibrium counterpart to a Landau-Ginzburg theory. In this paper we take a first step in this direction by constructing an effective free energy for continuous dynamical quantum phase transitions appearing after quantum quenches in the transverse-field Ising chain. Due to unitarity of quantum time evolution this effective free energy becomes a complex quantity transforming the conventional minimization principle of the free energy into a saddle-point equation in the complex plane of the order parameter, which as in equilibrium is the magnetization. We study this effective free energy in the vicinity of the dynamical quantum phase transition by performing an expansion in terms of the complex magnetization and discuss the connections to the equilibrium case. Furthermore, we study the influence of perturbations and signatures of these dynamical quantum phase transitions in spin correlation functions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.97.174303

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The theory of dynamical quantum phase transitions represents an attempt to extend the concept of phase transitions to the far from equilibrium regime. While there are many formal analogies to conventional transitions, it is a major question to which extent it is possible to formulate a nonequilibrium counterpart to a Landau-Ginzburg theory. In this paper we take a first step in this direction by constructing an effective free energy for continuous dynamical quantum phase transitions appearing after quantum quenches in the transverse-field Ising chain. Due to unitarity of quantum time evolution this effective free energy becomes a complex quantity transforming the conventional minimization principle of the free energy into a saddle-point equation in the complex plane of the order parameter, which as in equilibrium is the magnetization. We study this effective free energy in the vicinity of the dynamical quantum phase transition by performing an expansion in terms of the complex magnetization and discuss the connections to the equilibrium case. Furthermore, we study the influence of perturbations and signatures of these dynamical quantum phase transitions in spin correlation functions.
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.
Dynamical phase transitions (DPTs) occur after quenching some global parameters in quantum systems, and are signalled by the nonanalytical time evolution of the dynamical free energy, which is calculated from the Loschmidt overlap between the initial and time evolved states. In a recent Letter [M. Heyl et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 135704 (2013)], it was suggested that DPTs are closely related to equilibrium phase transitions (EPTs) for the transverse field Ising model. By studying a minimal model, the XY chain in a transverse magnetic field, we show analytically that this connection does not hold generally. We present examples where DPT occurs without crossing any equilibrium critical lines by the quench, and a nontrivial example with no DPT but crossing a critical line by the quench. Although the nonanalyticities of the dynamical free energy on the real time axis do not indicate the presence or absence of an EPT, the structure of Fisher lines for complex times reveals a qualitative difference.
There has been much recent interest in the study of out of equilibrium quantum systems due to experimental advances in trapped cold atomic gases that allow systematic studies of these effects.In this work we study a quantum Ising model in the presence of transverse and longitudinal magnetic fields.The model lacks an analytical solution in the most general case and has to be treated numerically.We first investigate the static properties of the model, including the ground state energy and the zero temperature phase diagram, using the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) method.We identify ordered and disordered phases separated by a quantum phase transition.We then consider the time evolution of the system following an abrupt quench of the fields.We study the response of the order parameter to the quenches within the ordered and disordered phases as well as quenches between the phases using the time-dependent DMRG method.The results are in qualitative agreement with experiments and the implemented numerical method in this work can be extended to allow for more general interactions.iii I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Malcolm Kennett, whose constant support and hope in the most disappointing situations, his helpful guidance, and endless energy were all new and very invaluable to me.I like to thank my
Using a renormalization group approach, we solve the time evolution of random Ising spin chains with generic interactions starting from initial states of arbitrary energy. As a function of the Hamiltonian parameters, the system is tuned through a dynamical transition, similar to the ground-state critical point, at which the local spin correlations establish true long-range temporal order. In the state with a dominant transverse field, a spin that starts in an up state loses its orientation with time, while in the ``ordered'' state it never does. As in ground-state quantum phase transitions, the dynamical transition has unique signatures in the entanglement properties of the system. When the system is initialized in a product state, the entanglement entropy grows as log(t)\mathrm{log}(t)log(t) in the two ``phases,'' while at the critical point it grows as ${\mathrm{log}}^{\ensuremath{\alpha}}(t)$, with $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ a universal number. This universal entanglement growth requires generic (``integrability breaking'') interactions to be added to the pure transverse field Ising model.
The theory of phase transitions represents a central concept for the characterization of equilibrium matter.In this work we study experimentally an extension of this theory to the nonequilibrium dynamical regime termed dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs).We investigate and measure DQPTs in a string of ions simulating interacting transverse-field Ising models.During the nonequilibrium dynamics induced by a quantum quench we show for strings of up to 10 ions the direct detection of DQPTs by revealing nonanalytic behavior in time.Moreover, we provide a link between DQPTs and the dynamics of other quantities such as the magnetization, and we establish a connection between DQPTs and entanglement production.
We study the nonequilibrium dynamics of the quantum Ising model following an abrupt quench of the transverse field. We focus on the on-site autocorrelation function of the order parameter, and extract the phase-coherence time tau(Q)(phi) from its asymptotic behavior. We show that the initial state determines tau(Q)(phi) only through an effective temperature set by its energy and the final Hamiltonian. Moreover, we observe that the dependence of tau(Q)(phi) on the effective temperature fairly agrees with that obtained in thermal equilibrium as a function of the equilibrium temperature.