2005/09/30 by Jacek Dziarmaga · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.other
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.95.245701
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 245701 (2005) · misprints corrected; version to appear in Phys.Rev.Lett
arxiv created 2005/11/23 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Quantum Ising model is an exactly solvable model of quantum phase transition. This paper gives an exact solution when the system is driven through the critical point at finite rate. The evolution goes through a series of Landau-Zener level anticrossings when pairs of quasiparticles with opposite pseudomomenta get excited with probability depending on the transition rate. Average density of defects excited in this way scales like a square root of the transition rate. This scaling is the same as the scaling obtained when the standard Kibble-Zurek mechanism of thermodynamic second order phase transitions is applied to the quantum phase transition in the Ising model.