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arXiv:2204.01380 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Interferometry based on the quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism

Han-Chuan Kou, Peng Li

Published Nov 14, 2022• 10 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We propose an interferometry within the framework of the quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism by exemplifying two prototypical quench protocols, namely, the round-trip and quarter-turn ones, on the transverse Ising and quantum $XY$ chains. Each protocol contains two linear ramps that drive the system across quantum critical point twice. The two linear ramps arouse two respective nonadiabatic critical dynamics that are well described by the quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism. However, in combination, the two critical dynamics can interfere with each other deeply. As an effect of the interference, the dynamical phase is exposed in the final excitation probability, which leads to a quantum coherent many-body oscillation in the density of defects with predictable characteristic period. Thus, such an interference is available for direct experimental observations. In the quantum $XY$ model, we show that an interference can also arise from the interplay between two different critical dynamics derived from a critical point and a tricritical point. Furthermore, we demonstrate a phenomenon of multiple length scales in the defect-defect correlator, which is due to the interplay between the interference and the quantum dephasing of excited quasiparticle modes. It turns out that the dephased result relies on how the diagonal and off-diagonal lengths are modulated by the controllable parameters in a quench protocol.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.106.184301

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We propose an interferometry within the framework of the quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism by exemplifying two prototypical quench protocols, namely, the round-trip and quarter-turn ones, on the transverse Ising and quantum XYXYXY chains. Each protocol contains two linear ramps that drive the system across quantum critical point twice. The two linear ramps arouse two respective nonadiabatic critical dynamics that are well described by the quantum Kibble-Zurek mechanism. However, in combination, the two critical dynamics can interfere with each other deeply. As an effect of the interference, the dynamical phase is exposed in the final excitation probability, which leads to a quantum coherent many-body oscillation in the density of defects with predictable characteristic period. Thus, such an interference is available for direct experimental observations. In the quantum XYXYXY model, we show that an interference can also arise from the interplay between two different critical dynamics derived from a critical point and a tricritical point. Furthermore, we demonstrate a phenomenon of multiple length scales in the defect-defect correlator, which is due to the interplay between the interference and the quantum dephasing of excited quasiparticle modes. It turns out that the dephased result relies on how the diagonal and off-diagonal lengths are modulated by the controllable parameters in a quench protocol.
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.
In this work, we focus on the critical dynamics of the one-dimensional quasiperiodic p-wave-paired Aubry-André-Harper model, which exhibits a transition point between the gapped critical and the gapless localized phases. First, we disclose that the dynamical exponent features two distinct plateaus in the gapless localized phase. Besides the plateau with dynamical exponent z=1.388z=1.388z=1.388 near the transition point, there is a second one with z=1z=1z=1 away from the transition point. Then we demonstrate that these two plateaus intrinsically affect the critical dynamics with moderate quench rate by employing both one-way and round-trip quench protocols. In the one-way quench protocol, we clarify that the Kibble-Zurek (KZ) regime consists of two sub-regimes with different KZ exponents, which is a direct consequence of the two-plateau structure of the dynamical exponent. We also diagnose the KZ, pre-saturated, and saturated regimes by varying the quench rate from slow to fast limits. While, in the round-trip quench protocol, we confirm the interference effect of two critical dynamics and show a narrow neck in the oscillatory density of defects. It turns out that the position of the neck depends on the ratio of to-and-fro quench rates and the p-wave superconductivity pairing amplitude. We show how the position of the neck can be used to quantitatively determine the turning point of the two KZ sub-regimes.
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.
When a system is swept through a quantum critical point (QCP), the Kibble-Zurek mechanism predicts that the average number of topological defects follows a universal power-law scaling with the ramp time scale. This scaling behavior is determined by the equilibrium critical exponents of the underlying phase transition. We show that the correspondence between Kibble-Zurek scaling and quantum criticality does not hold generally. In particular, the defect density can exhibit a suppression faster than the Kibble-Zurek prediction even when the quench crosses a critical point, while conventional Kibble-Zurek scaling may persist for quenches through a non-critical point. Our results, based on models representative of a broad class of quasi-one-dimensional Fermi systems, identify the dynamical conditions under which universal defect scaling emerges and clarify the relation between defect generation and equilibrium criticality.
We study the dynamics of a transverse-field XY\mathrm{XY}XY chain driven across quantum critical points by noisy control fields. We characterize the defect density as a function of the quench time and the noise strength and demonstrate that the defect productions for three quench protocols with different scaling exponents exhibit the anti-Kibble-Zurek behavior, whereby slower driving results in more defects. The protocols are quenching through the boundary line between paramagnetic and ferromagnetic phases, quenching across the isolated multicritical point, and quenching along the gapless line, respectively. We also show that the optimal quench time to minimize defects scales as a universal power law of the noise strength in all three cases. Furthermore, by using quantum simulation of the quench dynamics in the spin system with well-designed Landau-Zener crossings in pseudomomentum space, we propose an experimentally feasible scheme to test the predicted anti-Kibble-Zurek behavior of this noisy transverse-field XY\mathrm{XY}XY chain with two-level systems under controllable fluctuations.
Non-Hermitian descriptions of quantum matter have seen impressive progress recently, with major advances in understanding central aspects such as their topological properties or the physics of exceptional points, the non-Hermitian counterpart of critical points.Here, we use single-photon interferometry to reconstruct the non-Hermitian Kibble-Zurek mechanism and its distinct scaling behavior for exceptional points, by simulating the defect production upon performing slow parameter ramps.We report progress along two axes.First, we realize parameter ramps across higher-order exceptional points, providing experimental access to their theoretically predicted characteristic Kibble-Zurek scaling behavior in the defect production.Second, we extend the scaling properties to the defect fluctuations, which enables us to extract the correlation length and dynamical exponents of the underlying the exceptional point (EP) and therefore to gain direct experimental information about the universality class of the EPs.Our work represents a step toward increasing the experimental complexity of non-Hermitian quantum time evolution, as part of the quest to move the frontier from single-particle physics toward increasingly complex settings.