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arXiv:2105.09138 · Physical Review Research

Distribution of kinks in an Ising ferromagnet after annealing and the generalized Kibble-Zurek mechanism

Jack J. Mayo, Zhijie Fan, Gia-Wei Chern, Adolfo del Campo

Published Aug 13, 2021• 30 citations
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Abstract

We consider the annealing dynamics of a one-dimensional Ising ferromagnet induced by a temperature quench in finite time. In the limit of slow cooling, the asymptotic two-point correlator is analytically found under Glauber dynamics, and the distribution of the number of kinks in the final state is shown to be consistent with a Poissonian distribution. The mean kink number, the variance, and the third centered moment take the same value and obey a universal power-law scaling with the quench time in which the temperature is varied. The universal power-law scaling of cumulants is corroborated by numerical simulations based on Glauber dynamics for moderate cooling times away from the asymptotic limit, when the kink-number distribution takes a binomial form. We analyze the relation of these results to physics beyond the Kibble-Zurek mechanism for critical dynamics, using the kink-number distribution to assess adiabaticity and its breakdown. We consider linear, nonlinear, and exponential cooling schedules, among which the last provides the most efficient shortcuts to cooling in a given quench time. The nonthermal behavior of the final state is established by considering the trace norm distance to a canonical Gibbs state.

DOI
10.1103/physrevresearch.3.033150

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We consider the annealing dynamics of a one-dimensional Ising ferromagnet induced by a temperature quench in finite time. In the limit of slow cooling, the asymptotic two-point correlator is analytically found under Glauber dynamics, and the distribution of the number of kinks in the final state is shown to be consistent with a Poissonian distribution. The mean kink number, the variance, and the third centered moment take the same value and obey a universal power-law scaling with the quench time in which the temperature is varied. The universal power-law scaling of cumulants is corroborated by numerical simulations based on Glauber dynamics for moderate cooling times away from the asymptotic limit, when the kink-number distribution takes a binomial form. We analyze the relation of these results to physics beyond the Kibble-Zurek mechanism for critical dynamics, using the kink-number distribution to assess adiabaticity and its breakdown. We consider linear, nonlinear, and exponential cooling schedules, among which the last provides the most efficient shortcuts to cooling in a given quench time. The nonthermal behavior of the final state is established by considering the trace norm distance to a canonical Gibbs state.
When a quantum phase transition is crossed in finite time, critical slowing down leads to the breakdown of adiabatic dynamics and the formation of topological defects. The average density of defects scales with the quench rate following a universal power law predicted by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. We analyze the full counting statistics of kinks and report the exact kink number distribution in the transverse-field quantum Ising model. Kink statistics is described by the Poisson binomial distribution with all cumulants exhibiting a universal power law scaling with the quench rate. In the absence of finite-size effects, the distribution approaches a normal one, a feature that is expected to apply broadly in systems described by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism.
When a quantum system exhibiting a second order phase transition is quenched across the critical point in large but finite time, the dynamics are not adiabatic in the critical region and the Kibble-Zurek (KZ) mechanism provides a framework to determine local observables such as the mean defect density. However, to find higher-point functions, one has to go beyond the KZ paradigm asshown in recent works on one-dimensional transverse field Ising model (TFIM) following a linear quench. It has been found that (i) besides the KZ scale, the quench dynamics depend on another length scale that arises due to the finite phase difference between the low energy modes, and (ii) contrary to the expectations based on the KZ mechanism, in general, the correlation functions do not decay exponentially with distance. Motivated by these results for the linear quench, we are interested in understanding if these properties are universal, and consider the 1D TFIM when the transverse field varies algebraically in the vicinity of the critical field. We focus on the equal-time,longitudinal kink-kink correlation function at the end of the quench from the paramagnetic to the ferromagnetic phase, and find that (i) the correlator depends only on the KZ length for superlinear quenches, otherwise an additional dephasing length is required to describe it, and (ii) the dephased correlator decays as a compressed exponential with an exponent that changes continuously with the quench exponent. Our results are obtained using an adiabatic perturbation theory, analytical arguments and exact numerical integration of the relevant equations.
Abstract The Kibble–Zurek mechanism (KZM) describes the dynamics across a phase transition leading to the formation of topological defects, such as vortices in superfluids and domain walls in spin systems. Here, we experimentally probe the distribution of kink pairs in a one-dimensional quantum Ising chain driven across the paramagnet-ferromagnet quantum phase transition, using a single trapped ion as a quantum simulator in momentum space. The number of kink pairs after the transition follows a Poisson binomial distribution, in which all cumulants scale with a universal power law as a function of the quench time in which the transition is crossed. We experimentally verified this scaling for the first cumulants and report deviations due to noise-induced dephasing of the trapped ion. Our results establish that the universal character of the critical dynamics can be extended beyond KZM, which accounts for the mean kink number, to characterize the full probability distribution of topological defects.
Abstract While a large number of studies have focused on the nonequilibrium dynamics of a system when it is quenched instantaneously from a disordered phase to an ordered phase, such dynamics have been relatively less explored when the quench occurs at a finite rate. Here, we study the slow quench dynamics in two paradigmatic models of classical statistical mechanics, a one-dimensional kinetic Ising model and a mean-field zero-range process, when the system is annealed slowly to the critical point. Starting from the time evolution equations for the spin–spin correlation function in the Ising model and the mass distribution in the zero-range process, we derive the Kibble–Zurek scaling laws. We then test a recent proposal that critical coarsening, which is ignored in the Kibble–Zurek argument, plays a role in the nonequilibrium dynamics close to the critical point. We find that the defect density in the Ising model and a scaled mass distribution in the zero-range process decay linearly to their respective values at the critical point with the time remaining until the end of the quench provided the final quench point is approached sufficiently fast, and sublinearly otherwise. As the linear scaling for the approach to the critical point also holds when a system following an instantaneous quench is allowed to coarsen for a finite time interval, we conclude that critical coarsening captures the scaling behavior in the vicinity of the critical point if the annealing is not too slow.
The transverse field in the quantum Ising chain is linearly ramped from the para- to the ferromagnetic phase across the quantum critical point at a rate characterized by a quench time ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{Q}$. We calculate a connected kink-kink correlator in the final state at zero transverse field. The correlator is a sum of two terms: a negative (antibunching) Gaussian that depends on the Kibble-Zurek correlation length only and a positive term that depends on a second longer scale of length. The second length is made longer by dephasing of the state excited near the critical point during the following ramp across the ferromagnetic phase. This interpretation is corroborated by considering a linear ramp that is halted in the ferromagnetic phase for a finite waiting time and then continued at the same rate as before the halt. The extra time available for dephasing increases the second scale of length that asymptotically grows linearly with the waiting time. The dephasing also suppresses magnitude of the second term, making it negligible for waiting times much longer than ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{Q}$. The same dephasing can be obtained with a smooth ramp that slows down in the ferromagnetic phase. Assuming sufficient dephasing, we also obtain higher order kink correlators and the ferromagnetic correlation function.
We investigate the relaxation dynamics of a one-dimensional Ising chain via Glauber kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, when the system is cooled slowly from infinite temperature to zero temperature with different cooling protocols. The main quantity of interest is the excess defect density that represents the total defect density minus the equilibrium defect density at varying temperatures. We find that, for three classes of cooling protocols, the time dependence of the excess defect density for various cooling speed shows a dynamic scaling behavior that largely encompasses the Kibble-Zurek mechanism as well as Krapivsky's calculation of the final defect density at zero temperature. We also find distinct features in the behavior of the dynamic scaling when the temperature approaches in a power-law fashion to zero temperature and the excess defect density reaches a peak at finite temperature, where the scaling of the excess defect density at its peak and that at zero temperature exhibits different asymptotic behavior due to different logarithmic corrections. This characteristic behavior can be attributed to the exponential divergence of the relaxation time near zero temperature. While the qualitative theoretical predictions by Krapivsky on the asymptotic exponents are confirmed, the asymptotic predictions for amplitudes overestimate by up to 40% the simulation results.