To set the stage for our subsequent thorough discussion of dynamic critical phenomena, we first review the theoretical description of second-order equilibrium phase transitions. (Readers already well acquainted with this material may readily move on to Chapter 2.) To this end, we compare the critical exponents following from the van-der-Waals equation of state for weakly interacting gases with the results from the Curie–Weiss mean-field approximation for the ferromagnetic Ising model. We then provide a unifying description in terms of Landau–Ginzburg theory, i.e., a long-wavelength expansion of the effective free energy with respect to the order parameter. The Gaussian model is analyzed, and a quantitative criterion is established that defines the circumstances when non-linear fluctuations need to be taken into account properly. Thereby we identify d c = 4 as the upper critical dimension for generic continuous phase transitions in thermal equilibrium. The most characteristic feature of a critical point turns out to be the divergence of the correlation length that renders microscopic details oblivious. As a consequence, not only the correlation functions, but remarkably the thermodynamics as well of a critical system are governed by an emergent unusual symmetry: scale invariance. A simple scaling ansatz is capable of linking different critical exponents; as an application, we introduce the basic elements of finite-size scaling. Finally, a brief sketch of Wilson's momentum shell renormalization group method is presented, intended as a pedagogical preview of the fundamental RG ideas. Exploiting the scale invariance properties at the critical point, the scaling forms of the free energy and the order parameter correlation function are derived.
We propose a scaling theory for the universal imaginary-time quantum critical dynamics for both short and long times. We discover that there exists a universal critical initial slip related to a small initial order parameter
M0. In this stage, the order parameter
M increases with the imaginary time $\ensuremath{\tau}$ as $M\ensuremath{\propto}{M}_{0}{\ensuremath{\tau}}^{\ensuremath{\theta}}$ with a universal initial-slip exponent $\ensuremath{\theta}$. For the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model, we estimate $\ensuremath{\theta}$ to be
0.373, which is markedly distinct from its classical counterpart. Apart from the local order parameter, we also show that the entanglement entropy exhibits universal behavior in the short-time region. As the critical exponents in the early stage and in equilibrium are identical, we apply the short-time dynamics method to determine quantum critical properties. The method is generally applicable in both the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson paradigm and topological phase transitions.
In the preceding chapter, we have introduced several levels for the mathematical description of stochastic dynamics. We now use the kinetic Ising models introduced in Section 2.3.3 to formulate the dynamic scaling hypothesis which appropriately generalizes the homogeneity property of the static correlation function in the vicinity of a critical point, as established in Chapter 1. The dynamic critical exponent z is defined to characterize both the critical dispersion and the basic phenomenon of critical slowing-down. As a next step, and building on the results of Section 2.4, a continuum effective theory for the mesoscopic order parameter density, basically the dynamical analog to the Ginzburg–Landau approach, is constructed in terms of a non-linear Langevin equation. The distinction between dissipative and diffusive dynamics for the purely relaxational kinetics of either a non-conserved or conserved order parameter field, respectively, defines the universality classes A and B. Following the analysis of these models in the Gaussian approximation, they also serve to outline the construction of a dynamical perturbation theory for non-linear stochastic differential equations through direct iteration. In general, however, the order parameter alone does not suffice to fully capture the critical dynamics near a second-order phase transition. Additional hydrodynamic modes originating from conservation laws need to be accounted for as well. The simplest such situation is entailed in the relaxational models C and D, which encompass the static coupling of the order parameter to the energy density. Further scenarios emerge through reversible non-linear mode couplings in the Langevin equations of motion.
We explore the critical properties of the recently discovered finite-time dynamical phase transition in the nonequilibrium relaxation of Ising magnets after a temperature quench. The transition is characterized by a sudden switch in the relaxation dynamics and it occurs at a sharp critical time. While previous works have focused either on mean-field interactions or on investigating the critical time, we analyze the critical fluctuations at the phase transition in the nearest-neighbor Ising model on a square lattice using Monte Carlo simulations. By means of a finite-size scaling analysis, we extract the critical exponents for the transition. In two spatial dimensions, we find that the exponents are consistent with those of the two-dimensional Ising universality class when the system is initially in the vicinity of the critical point. For initial temperatures below the critical one, however, the critical exponents differ from the Ising-exponents, indicating a distinct dynamical critical phenomenon.
This paper proposes an approach to the study of critical phenomena in quantum-mechanical systems at zero or low temperatures, where classical free-energy functionals of the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson sort are not valid. The functional integral transformations first proposed by Stratonovich and Hubbard allow one to construct a quantum-mechanical generalization of the Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson functional in which the order-parameter field depends on (imaginary) time as well as space. Since the time variable lies in the finite interval [$0,\ensuremath{-}i\ensuremath{\beta}$], where $\ensuremath{\beta}$ is the inverse temperature, the resulting description of a
d-dimensional system shares some features with that of a (
d+1)-dimensional classical system which has finite extent in one dimension. However, the analogy is not complete, in general, since time and space do not necessarily enter the generalized free-energy functional in the same way. The Wilson renormalization group is used here to investigate the critical behavior of several systems for which these generalized functionals can be constructed simply. Of these, the itinerant ferromagnet is studied in greater detail. The principal results of this investigation are (i) at zero temperature, in situations where the ordering is brought about by changing a coupling constant, the dimensionality which separates classical from nonclassical critical-exponent behavior is not 4, as is usually the case in classical statistics, but $4\ensuremath{-}z$ dimensions, where
z depends on the way the frequency enters the generalized free-energy functional. When it does so in the same way that the wave vector does, as happens in the case of interacting magnetic excitons, the effective dimensionality is simply increased by 1;
z=1. It need not appear in this fashion, however, and in the examples of itinerant antiferromagnetism and clean and dirty itinerant ferromagnetism, one finds
z=2,3,and4, respectively. (ii) At finite temperatures, one finds that a classical statistical-mechanical description holds (and nonclassical exponents, for
d<4) very close to the critical value of the coupling
Uc, when $\frac{(U\ensuremath{-}{U}_{c})}{{U}_{c}}\ensuremath{\ll}{(\frac{T}{{U}_{c}})}^{\frac{2}{z}}$.
2z is therefore the quantum-to-classical crossover exponent.
Extending the Monte Carlo method to dynamic critical phenomena we investigated the time-dependent correlation functions in the two-dimensional one-spin-flip Ising model and the critical behavior of the associated relaxation times. These relaxation times are the following: ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{\Delta}T}$, characterizing the approach of the order parameter to equilibrium after a change of temperature $\ensuremath{\Delta}T$ of the system; ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}}$ and ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}}^{A}$ characterizing the slowing down of the order-parameter correlation and autocorrelation functions, respectively; ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}}$ and ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}}^{A}$, characterizing the slowing down of the energy correlation and autocorrelation functions; and finally ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}}$, characterizing the cross-correlation function. We give estimates for the associated exponents ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{\Delta}T}\ensuremath{\approx}{\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}}\ensuremath{\approx}{\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}}\ensuremath{\approx}{\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}}\ensuremath{\approx}1.90\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.10$, and ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}}^{A}\ensuremath{\approx}1.60\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.10$, ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}}^{A}\ensuremath{\approx}0.95\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.10$, ${\ensuremath{\Delta}}_{\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}\ensuremath{\delta}\mathcal{H}}^{A}\ensuremath{\approx}0$, which are consistent with the dynamic scaling hypothesis and with exact inequalities. A detailed comparison with recent high-temperature-expansion estimates is performed, and the reliability of the Monte Carlo results is carefully analyzed.