Related papers: Topological defects as relics of spontaneous symme…
Lars Onsager and Richard Feynman envisioned that the three-dimensional (3D) superfluid-to-normal $\lambda$ transition in $^{4}$He occurs through the proliferation of vortices. This process should hold for every phase transition in the same…
We demonstrate a novel mechanism for the formation of topological defects in a first order phase transition for theories in the presence of small explicit symmetry breaking terms. We carry out numerical simulations of collisions of two…
Topological defects are ubiquitous in physics. Whenever a symmetry breaking phase transition occurs, topological defects may form. The best known examples are vortex lines in type II super conductors or in liquid Helium, and declination…
Symmetry breaking phase transitions are an example of non-equilibrium processes that require real time treatment, a major challenge in strongly coupled systems without long-lived quasiparticles. Holographic duality provides such an approach…
We investigate the mechanism by which topological defects form in first order phase transitions with a charged order parameter. We show how thick superconductor vortices and heavy cosmic strings form by trapping of magnetic flux. In an…
Symmetry breaking phase transitions from less to more ordered phases will typically produce topological defects in the ordered phase. Kibble-Zurek theory predicts that for any second-order phase transition, such as the early universe, the…
We examine the formation and critical dynamics of topological defects via Kibble-Zurek mechanism in a (2+1)-dimensional quantum critical point, which is conjectured to dual to a Lifshitz geometry. Quantized magnetic fluxoids are…
Higher-form symmetries are a valuable tool for classifying topological phases of matter. However, emergent higher-form symmetries in interacting many-body quantum systems are not typically exact due to the presence of topological defects.…
We present a detailed study of a single vortex in a holographic symmetry breaking phase. At low energies the system flows to an nontrivial conformal fixed point. Novel vortex physics arises from the interaction of these gapless degrees of…
The formation of topological defects during continuous second-order phase transitions is well described by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM). However, when the spontaneously broken symmetry is only approximate, such transitions become smooth…
Our understanding of the mechanism by which topological defects are formed in symmetry breaking phase transitions has recently changed. We examine the non-equilibrium dynamics of defect formation for weakly-coupled global O(N) theories…
Superconductors are the only experimentally accessible systems with spontaneously broken gauge symmetries which support topologically nontrivial defects, namely string defects. We propose two experiments whose aim is the observation of the…
We investigate the formation of topological defects in the course of a dynamical phase transition with different boundary conditions in a ring from AdS/CFT correspondence. According to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, quenching the system across…
Gauge invariance plays an important role in forming topological defects. In this work, from the AdS/CFT correspondence, we realize the clusters of equal-sign vortices during the course of critical dynamics of a strongly coupled…
The crossing of a continuous phase transition results in the formation of topological defects with a density predicted by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM). We characterize the spatial distribution of point-like topological defects in the…
In systems with broken $U(1)$ symmetry, such as superfluids, superconductors or magnets, the symmetry restoration is driven by proliferation of topological defects in the form of vortex loops. Here we discuss that in certain systems the…
Topological defects arise in a variety of systems, e.g. vortices in superfluid helium to cosmic strings in the early universe. There is an indirect evidence of neutron superfluid vortices from glitches in pulsars. One also expects that…
When a symmetry gets spontaneously broken in a phase transition, topological defects are typically formed. The theoretical picture of how this happens in a breakdown of a global symmetry, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, is well established and…
Symmetry-breaking phase transitions are ubiquitous in condensed matter systems and in quantum field theories. There is also good reason to believe that they feature in the very early history of the Universe. At many such transitions…
The formation and dynamics of topological defects of different structure has been of central interest in the study of the 3He superfluids. Compared to superfluid 4He-II, the variability of the important parameters with temperature and…