The crossing of a continuous phase transition gives rise to the formation of topological defects described by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM) in the limit of slow quenches. The KZM predicts a universal power-law scaling of the defect density as a function of the quench time. We focus on the deviations from KZM experimentally observed in rapid quenches and establish their universality. While KZM scaling holds below a critical quench rate, for faster quenches the defect density and the freeze-out time become independent of the quench rate and exhibit a universal power-law scaling with the final value of the control parameter. These predictions are verified in several paradigmatic scenarios in both the classical and quantum domains.
@article{arxiv.2204.13529,
title = {Universal breakdown of Kibble-Zurek scaling in fast quenches across a phase transition},
author = {Hua-Bi Zeng and Chuan-Yin Xia and Adolfo del Campo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.13529},
year = {2023}
}