2023/12/27 by Matthew T. Wheeler, Hayder Salman, Magnus O. Borgh · 1 voice
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.quant-gas #cond-mat.stat-mech #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s42005-025-02048-7
arxiv published 2023/12/27 · arxiv updated 2025/04/13
Symmetry-breaking quantum phase transitions lead to the production of topological defects or domain walls in a wide range of physical systems. In second-order transitions, these exhibit universal scaling laws described by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, but for first-order transitions a similarly universal approach is still lacking. Here we propose a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate as a testbed system where critical scaling behavior in a first-order quantum phase transition can be understood from generic properties. We demonstrate the applicability of the Kibble-Zurek mechanism for this transition to determine the critical exponents for: (1) the onset of the decay of the metastable state on short times scales, and (2) the number of resulting phase-separated ferromagnetic domains at longer times, as a one-dimensional spin-1 condensate is ramped across a first-order quantum phase transition. The predictions are in excellent agreement with mean-field numerical simulations and provide a paradigm for studying the decay of metastable states in experimentally accessible systems.