English

Dynamical and excited-state quantum phase transitions in collective systems

Statistical Mechanics 2022-07-29 v2 Quantum Physics

Abstract

We study dynamical phase transitions (DPTs) in quantum many-body systems with infinite-range interaction, and present a theory connecting the two kinds of known DPTs (sometimes referred to as DPTs-I and DPTs-II) with the concept of excited-state quantum phase transition (ESQPT), traditionally found in collective models. We show that DPTs-I appear as a manifestation of symmetry restoration after a quench from the broken-symmetry phase, the limits between these two phases being demarcated precisely by an ESQPT. We describe the order parameters of DPTs-I with a generalization of the standard microcanonical ensemble incorporating the information of an additional conserved charge identifying the corresponding phase. We also show that DPTs-I are linked to a mechanism of information erasure brought about by the ESQPT, and quantify this information loss with the statistical ensemble that we propose. Finally, we show analytically that DPTs-II are forbidden in these systems for quenches leading a broken-symmetry initial state to the same broken-symmetry phase, on one side of the ESQPT, and we provide a formulation of DPTs-II depending on the side of the ESQPT where the quench ends. We analyze the connections between various indicators of DPTs-II. Our results are numerically illustrated in the infinite-range transverse-field Ising model and are applicable to a large class of collective quantum systems satisfying a set of conditions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2205.11199,
  title  = {Dynamical and excited-state quantum phase transitions in collective systems},
  author = {Ángel L. Corps and Armando Relaño},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2205.11199},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

Some comments added, published in Phys. Rev. B; see also arXiv:2205.03443

R2 v1 2026-06-24T11:25:28.827Z