We study the nonequilibrium slow dynamics for the Kitaev model both in the presence and the absence of disorder. For the case without disorder, we demonstrate, via an exact solution, that the model provides an example of a system with an anisotropic critical point and exhibits unusual scaling of defect density
n and residual energy
Q for a slow linear quench. We provide a general expression for the scaling of
n(Q) generated during a slow power-law dynamics, characterized by a rate ${\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ and exponent $\ensuremath{\alpha}$, from a gapped phase to an anisotropic quantum critical point in
d dimensions, for which the energy gap ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{\stackrel{P\vec}{k}}\ensuremath{\sim}{k}_{i}^{z}$ for
m momentum components
(i=1,…,m) and $\ensuremath{\sim}{k}_{i}^{{z}^{\ensuremath{'}}}$ for the rest $d\ensuremath{-}m$ components
(i=m+1,…,d) with $z\ensuremath{\le}{z}^{\ensuremath{'}}$: $n\ensuremath{\sim}{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}[m+(d\ensuremath{-}m)z/{z}^{\ensuremath{'}}]\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\alpha}/(z\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\alpha}+1)}(Q\ensuremath{\sim}{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}[(m+z)+(d\ensuremath{-}m)z/{z}^{\ensuremath{'}}]\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\alpha}/(z\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\alpha}+1)})$. These general expressions reproduce both the corresponding results for the Kitaev model as a special case for $d={z}^{\ensuremath{'}}=2$ and $m=z=\ensuremath{\nu}=1$ and the well-known scaling laws of
n and
Q for isotropic critical points for $z={z}^{\ensuremath{'}}$. We also present an exact computation of all nonzero, independent, multispin correlation functions of the Kitaev model for such a quench and discuss their spatial dependence. For the disordered Kitaev model, where the disorder is introduced via random choice of the link variables
Dn in the model's fermionic representation, we find that $n\ensuremath{\sim}{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$ and $Q\ensuremath{\sim}{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ $(Q\ensuremath{\sim}{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2})$ for a slow linear quench ending in the gapless (gapped) phase. We provide a qualitative explanation of such scaling.
We study the behavior of the defect and heat densities under sudden quenching near the quantum critical points in the two-dimensional Kitaev honeycomb model both in the thermodynamic and nonthermodynamic limits. We consider quenches starting from a quantum critical point into the gapped as well as the gapless phases. We choose points on the lines of anisotropic quantum critical points as well as different points of intersection of these lines as the initial points from where the quenching starts. We find that the defect and heat densities display the expected power-law scalings along with logarithmic corrections to scaling (or cusp singularities) in certain cases. In the vicinity of some of the intersection points, the scaling behaviors change, indicating an effective dimensional reduction; the scaling behavior near these points depends on the number of critical lines crossed in the process of quenching. All the analytical predictions are also verified by numerical integration.
We investigate the quantum phase transition (QPT) and quench dynamics in the anisotropic Rabi model when the ratio of the qubit transition frequency to the oscillator frequency approaches infinity. Based on the Schrieffer-Wolff transformation, we find an anti-Hermitian operator that maps the original Hamiltonian into a one-dimensional oscillator Hamiltonian within the spin-down subspace. We analytically derive the eigenenergy and eigenstate of the normal and superradiant phases and demonstrate that the system undergoes a second-order quantum phase transition at a critical border. The critical border is a straight line in a two-dimensional parameter space which essentially extends the dimensionality of QPT in the Rabi model. By combining the Kibble-Zurek mechanism and the adiabatic dynamics method, we find that the residual energy vanishes as the quench time tends to zero, which is a sharp contrast to the universal scaling where the residual energy diverges in the same limit.
We study the dynamical response of a system to a sudden change of the tuning parameter $\ensuremath{\lambda}$ starting (or ending) at the quantum critical point. In particular, we analyze the scaling of the excitation probability, number of excited quasiparticles, heat and entropy with the quench amplitude, and the system size. We extend the analysis to quenches with arbitrary power law dependence on time of the tuning parameter, showing a close connection between the scaling behavior of these quantities with the singularities of the adiabatic susceptibilities of order
m at the quantum critical point, where
m is related to the power of the quench. Precisely for sudden quenches, the relevant susceptibility of the second order coincides with the fidelity susceptibility. We discuss the generalization of the scaling laws to the finite-temperature quenches and show that the statistics of the low-energy excitations becomes important. We illustrate the relevance of those results for cold-atom experiments.
We study the universal real-time relaxation behaviors of a long-range Kitaev chain following a quench, and the results are compared to a short-range quantum XY chain. Our research includes both noncritical and critical quenches. In the case of noncritical quench, i.e., neither the initial state nor the postquench Hamiltonian is at a critical point of the equilibrium phase transition, a quench to the commensurate phase or incommensurate phase gives a scaling of ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}3/2}$ or ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$, respectively, which is the same as the counterpart of the short-range quantum XY model. However, for a quench to the boundary line between the commensurate and incommensurate phases, the scaling law ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\mu}}$ may be different from the ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}3/4}$ law of the counterpart of the short-range quantum XY model. More interestingly, the decaying exponent $\ensuremath{\mu}$ may depend on the choice of the parameters of the postquench Hamiltonian because of the different asymptotic behaviors of the energy spectrum. Furthermore, in certain cases, the scaling behavior may be outside the range of predictions made by the stationary phase approximation, because an inflection point emerges in the energy spectrum. For the critical quench, i.e., the initial state or the postquench Hamiltonian is at a critical point of equilibrium phase transition, the aforementioned scaling law ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\mu}}$ may be changed because of the gap-closing property of the energy spectrum of the critical point.
We discuss the quench dynamics near a quantum critical point focusing on the sine-Gordon model as a primary example. We suggest a unified approach to sudden and slow quenches, where the tuning parameter $\ensuremath{\lambda}(t)$ changes in time as $\ensuremath{\lambda}(t)\ensuremath{\sim}\ensuremath{\upsilon}{t}^{r}$, based on the adiabatic expansion of the excitation probability in powers of $\ensuremath{\upsilon}$. We show that the universal scaling of the excitation probability can be understood through the singularity of the generalized adiabatic susceptibility ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{2r+2}(\ensuremath{\lambda})$, which for sudden quenches
(r=0) reduces to the fidelity susceptibility. In turn this class of susceptibilities is expressed through the moments of the connected correlation function of the quench operator. We analyze the excitations created after a sudden quench of the cosine potential using a combined approach of form-factors expansion and conformal perturbation theory for the low-energy and high-energy sector, respectively. We find the general scaling laws for the probability of exciting the system, the density of excited quasiparticles, the entropy and the heat generated after the quench. In the two limits where the sine-Gordon model maps to hard-core bosons and free massive fermions we provide the exact solutions for the quench dynamics and discuss the finite temperature generalizations.