2013/02/28 by S. Ulm, Stefan Ulm, J. Roßnagel +16 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology #Critical phenomena #Geometry #Homogeneous space #Ion #Phase (matter) #Phase transition #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Scaling #Scaling law #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #Statistical mechanics #Statistical physics #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Theoretical physics #cond-mat.other #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/ncomms3290
published as Nature Communications 4, 2290 (2013)
openalex publication_date 2013/08/07 · arxiv created 2014/08/25 · arxiv updated 2014/08/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Traversal of a symmetry-breaking phase transition at a finite rate can lead to causallyseparated regions with incompatible symmetries and the formation of defects at their boundaries. The defect formation follows universal scaling laws prescribed by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM) important to the study of phase transitions in fields as diverse as quantum and statistical mechanics, condensed matter physics and cosmology. Here, we observe the KZM in a crystal of cold trapped ions, which is conducive to the precise control of structural phases and the detection of defects. The experiment confirms a scaling law with an exponent of 2.68 +/- 0.06, as predicted from the KZM in the finite inhomogeneous case. Such precision makes it feasible to use ion crystals for quantitative tests of classical and quantum statistical mechanics.