2014/11/08 by Massimo Campostrini, Jacopo Nespolo, Andrea Pelissetto +1 · 6 citations
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Classification of discontinuities #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Condensed matter physics #Discontinuity (linguistics) #Ferromagnetism #Field (mathematics) #Ground state #Ising model #Magnetic field #Mathematics #Phase transition #Physics #Potts model #Quantum #Quantum fluctuation #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Quantum phase transition #Scaling #Statistical physics #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.quant-gas #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.91.022108
published in Physical Review E 91(2), 022108 (American Physical Society) · 11 pages
arxiv created 2014/11/08 · openalex publication_date 2015/02/09 · arxiv updated 2015/03/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We investigate the effects of smooth inhomogeneities at first-order quantum transitions (FOQTs), such as those arising in the presence of a space-dependent external field, which smooths out the discontinuities of the low-energy properties at the transition. We argue that a universal scaling behavior emerges in the space transition region close to the point in which the external field takes the value for which the homogeneous system undergoes the FOQT. We verify the general theory in two model systems. We consider the quantum Ising chain in the ferromagnetic phase and the q-state Potts chain for q=10, investigating the scaling behavior which arises in the presence of an additional inhomogeneous parallel and transverse magnetic field, respectively. Numerical results are in full agreement with the general theory.