2014/06/30 by Pia Gagel, Peter P. Orth, Jörg Schmalian
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Critical exponent #Critical phenomena #Critical point (mathematics) #Crossover #Exponent #Mathematics #Order (exchange) #Phase transition #Physics #Quantum #Quantum critical point #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Quantum phase transition #Scaling #Statistical physics #Theoretical and Computational Physics #Thermalisation #cond-mat.stat-mech #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.113.220401
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 220401 (2014) · 4+ pages, 3 figures; includes Supplemental Material (3 pages). Published version
openalex publication_date 2014/11/26 · arxiv created 2015/03/10 · arxiv updated 2015/03/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider an open system near a quantum critical point that is suddenly moved towards the critical point. The bath-dominated diffusive nonequilibrium dynamics after the quench is shown to follow scaling behavior, governed by a critical exponent that emerges in addition to the known equilibrium critical exponents. We determine this exponent and show that it describes universal prethermalized coarsening dynamics of the order parameter in an intermediate time regime. Implications of this quantum critical prethermalization are: (i) a power law rise of order and correlations after an initial collapse of the equilibrium state and (ii) a crossover to thermalization that occurs arbitrarily late for sufficiently shallow quenches.