Kibble Zurek mechanism of topological defect formation in quantum field theory with matrix product states

2017/11/30 by Edward Gillman, Arttu Rajantie · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Field (mathematics) #Geometry #Mathematical physics #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum #Quantum field theory #Quantum gravity #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Scalar (mathematics) #Scalar field #Scalar field theory #Tensor product #Topological defect #Topology (electrical circuits) #hep-lat #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.97.094505

published in Physical review. D/Physical review. D. 97(9) (American Physical Society) · 18 pages, 8 figures : v3 ; version accepted for publication in PRD

openalex created_date 2017/12/04 · openalex publication_date 2018/05/16 · arxiv created 2018/08/13 · arxiv updated 2018/08/14 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

The Kibble Zurek mechanism in a relativistic \ensuremathφ⁴ scalar field theory in D=(1+1) is studied using uniform matrix product states. The equal time two point function in momentum space G₂(k) is approximated as the system is driven through a quantum phase transition at a variety of different quench rates \ensuremathτ_Q. We focus on looking for signatures of topological defect formation in the system and demonstrate the consistency of the picture that the two point function G₂(k) displays two characteristic scales, the defect density n and the kink width d_K. Consequently, G₂(k) provides a clear signature for the formation of defects and a well defined measure of the defect density in the system. These results provide a benchmark for the use of tensor networks as powerful nonperturbative nonequilibrium methods for relativistic quantum field theory, providing a promising technique for the future study of high energy physics and cosmology.

Citations

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