2008/11/30 by A. Bermudez, D. Patanè, L. Amico +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.str-el #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.102.135702
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 135702 (2009) · Phys. Rev. Lett. (to be published)
arxiv created 2009/03/09 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
We study the influence of topology on the quench dynamics of a system driven across a quantum critical point. We show how the appearance of certain edge states, which fully characterise the topology of the system, dramatically modifies the process of defect production during the crossing of the critical point. Interestingly enough, the density of defects is no longer described by the Kibble-Zurek scaling, but determined instead by the non-universal topological features of the system. Edge states are shown to be robust against defect production, which highlights their topological nature.