Experimentally testing quantum critical dynamics beyond the Kibble-Zurek mechanism
Abstract
We experimentally probe the distribution of kink pairs resulting from driving a one-dimensional quantum Ising chain through the paramagnet-ferromagnet quantum phase transition, using a single trapped ion as a quantum simulator in momentum space. The number of kink pairs after the transition follows a Poisson binomial distribution, in which all cumulants scale with a universal power-law as a function of the quench time in which the transition is crossed. We experimentally verified this scaling for the first cumulants and report deviations due to noise-induced dephasing of the trapped ion. Our results establish that the universal character of the critical dynamics can be extended beyond the paradigmatic Kibble-Zurek mechanism, which accounts for the mean kink number, to characterize the full probability distribution of topological defects.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1903.02145,
title = {Experimentally testing quantum critical dynamics beyond the Kibble-Zurek mechanism},
author = {Jin-Ming Cui and Fernando Javier Gómez-Ruiz and Yun-Feng Huang and Chuan-Feng Li and Guang-Can Guo and Adolfo del Campo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.02145},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
Main text 11 pages, 4 Figures, Supplemental Information: 9 pages, 3 Figures