Related papers: Causality and non-equilibrium second-order phase t…
In quantum many-body systems with local interactions, the effects of boundary conditions are considered to be negligible, at least for sufficiently large systems. Here we show an example of the opposite. We consider a spin chain with two…
Topological defects are singularities in material fields that play a vital role across a range of systems: from cosmic microwave background polarization to superconductors, and biological materials. Although topological defects and their…
Dynamical symmetries are of considerable importance in elucidating the complex behaviour of strongly interacting systems with many degrees of freedom. Paradigmatic examples are cooperative phenomena as they arise in phase transitions, where…
The degree of randomness, or partial order, present in two-dimensional supramolecular arrays of isophthalate tetracarboxylic acids is shown to vary due to subtle chemical changes such as the choice of solvent or small differences in…
Classical chaos is marked by an extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, where infinitesimally close trajectories separate exponentially over time. In quantum mechanics, however, unitary evolution and the uncertainty principle preclude…
Spontaneous symmetry breaking in systems with symmetry is a cornerstone phenomenon accompanying second-order phase transitions. Here, we predict the opposite phenomenon, namely, spontaneous symmetry emergence in a system that lacks…
In pulsating active matter, topological defects are motile despite the absence of any macroscopic flows and microscopic self-propulsion. We reveal that this motility arises from a ratchet effect: the mechanochemical coupling between local…
What are the signatures of the onset of catastrophe? Here we present the rich system physics characterizing the transition from homeostasis to stochasticity driven breakdown in an experimentally motivated minimal model. Recent…
Geometrical properties of two-dimensional mixtures near the jamming transition point are numerically investigated using harmonic particles under mechanical training. The configurations generated by the quasi-static compression and…
We investigate the critical behavior of systems exhibiting a continuous absorbing phase transition in the presence of a conserved field coupled to the order parameter. The results obtained point out the existence of a new universality class…
In binary superfluid counterflow systems, vortex nucleation arises as a consequence of hydrodynamic instabilities when the coupling coefficient and counterflow velocity exceed the critical value. When dealing with two identical components,…
We study the effects of symmetry-breaking defects at continuous quantum transitions (CQTs), which may arise from localized external fields coupled to the order-parameter operator. The problem is addressed within renormalization-group (RG)…
Quasi-static transformations, or slow quenches, of many-body quantum systems across quantum critical points create topological defects. The Kibble-Zurek mechanism regulates the appearance of defects in a local quantum system through a…
Topological boundary modes can occur at the spatial interface between a topological and gapped trivial phase and exhibit a wavefunction that exponentially decays in the gap. Here we argue that this intuition fails for a temporal boundary…
Cellular automata are widely used to model natural or artificial systems. Classically they are run with perfect synchrony, i.e., the local rule is applied to each cell at each time step. A possible modification of the updating scheme…
The occurrence of high-T_c superconductivity in systems including the cuprates and the iron-based superconductors, is known to coincide with the existence of anomalous normal-state properties which have been associated with quantum…
We study the entropy production in a macroscopic nonequilibrium system that undergoes an order-disorder phase transition. Entropy production is a characteristic feature of nonequilibrium dynamics with broken detailed balance. It is found…
The equilibrium configuration of an engineering structure, able to withstand a certain loading condition, is usually associated with a local minimum of the underlying potential energy. However, in the nonlinear context, there may be other…
The Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM) describes the non-equilibrium dynamics and topological defect formation in systems undergoing second-order phase transitions. KZM has found applications in fields such as cosmology and condensed matter…
Topological phase transition is accompanied with a change of topological numbers. It has been believed that the gap closing and the breakdown of the adiabaticity at the transition point is necessary in general. However, the gap closing is…