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arXiv:2107.04615 · SciPost Physics Core

Excitations and ergodicity of critical quantum spin chains from non-equilibrium classical dynamics

Stéphane Vinet, Gabriel Longpré, William Witczak‐Krempa

Published Jul 7, 2022• 1 citation
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Abstract

We study a quantum spin-1/2 chain that is dual to the canonical problem of non-equilibrium Kawasaki dynamics of a classical Ising chain coupled to a thermal bath. The Hamiltonian is obtained for the general disordered case with non-uniform Ising couplings. The quantum spin chain (dubbed Ising-Kawasaki) is stoquastic, and depends on the Ising couplings normalized by the bath's temperature. We give its exact ground states. Proceeding with uniform couplings, we study the one- and two-magnon excitations. Solutions for the latter are derived via a Bethe Ansatz scheme. In the antiferromagnetic regime, the two-magnon branch states show intricate behavior, especially regarding their hybridization with the continuum. We find that that the gapless chain hosts multiple dynamics at low energy as seen through the presence of multiple dynamical critical exponents. Finally, we analyze the full energy level spacing distribution as a function of the Ising coupling. We conclude that the system is non-integrable for generic parameters, or equivalently, that the corresponding non-equilibrium classical dynamics are ergodic.

DOI
10.21468/scipostphyscore.5.3.035

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Non-universal dynamics is shown to occur in a one-dimensional non-equilibrium system of hard-core particles. The stochastic processes included are pair creation and annihilation (with rates e and e') and symmetric hopping rates which alternate from one bond to the next (Pa, Pb). A dynamical scaling relation between the relaxation time and the correlation length in the steady state is derived in a simple way for the case e' > Pa >> Pb >> e. We find that the dynamical exponent takes the non-universal value z = 2 ln(e'/e) / ln[(Pb e')/(Pa e)]. For the special condition e + e'= Pa + Pb, where the stochastic system is in principle soluble by reduction to a free fermion system, the model is mapped to the Glauber dynamics of an Ising chain with alternating ferromagnetic bonds of values J1 and J2, in contact with a quantum thermal bath. The full time dependence of the space-dependent magnetization and of the equal time spin-spin correlation function are studied by writing the master equation for this system in the quantum Hamiltonian formalism. In particular we obtain the dispersion relations and rigorously confirm the results obtained for the correlation length and for the dynamical exponent.
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We study the non-equilibrium phase diagram and the dynamical phase transitions occurring during the pre-thermalization of non-integrable quantum spin chains, subject to either quantum quenches or linear ramps of a relevant control parameter. We consider spin systems in which long-range ferromagnetic interactions compete with short-range, integrability-breaking terms. We capture the pre-thermal stages of the non-equilibrium evolution via a time-dependent spin wave expansion at leading order in the spin waves density. In order to access regimes with strong integrability breaking, instead, we perform numerical simulations based on the time-dependent variational principle with matrix product states. By investigating a large class of quantum spin models, we demonstrate that non-equilibrium fluctuations can significantly affect the dynamics near critical points of the phase diagram, resulting in a chaotic evolution of the collective order parameter, akin to the dynamics of a classical particle in a multiple-well potential subject to quantum friction. We also elucidate the signature of this novel dynamical phase on the time-dependent correlation functions of the local order parameter. We finally establish a connection with the notion of dynamical quantum phase transition associated with a possible non-analytic behavior of the return probability amplitude, or Loschmidt echo, showing that the latter displays cusps whenever the order parameter vanishes during its real-time evolution.