Topological defect formation from 2PI effective action techniques

Abstract

We propose a quantum approach to nonequilibrium dynamics which combines the successful aspects of classical-statistical simulations on a lattice with the ability to take into account quantum corrections. It is based on the 2PI effective action for inhomogeneous fields and a volume average. This procedure does not involve any double counting which could appear in sampling prescriptions for inhomogeneous quantum evolutions. As an example, we study nonequilibrium dynamics of defect formation in 1+1 dimensional relativistic scalar field theory and compare to insufficient descriptions based on homogeneous quantum fields. The latter are analyzed in detail by coupling the field to an external source, such that the emerging influence of defects can be studied by lowering the source to zero.

32 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Non-thermal fixed points: effective weak-coupling for strongly correlated systems far from equilibrium
• Bottom-up isotropization in classical-statistical lattice gauge theory
• Quantum versus classical statistical dynamics of an ultracold Bose gas
• Instability-induced fermion production in quantum field theory
• Quantum field thermalization in expanding backgrounds
• Nonequilibrium dynamics in the O(N) model to next-to-next-to-leading order in the 1/N expansion
• Effective convergence of the 2PI-1/N expansion for nonequilibrium quantum fields

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Far-from-equilibrium field theory of many-body quantum spin systems: Prethermalization and relaxation of spin spiral states in three dimensions
• The initial spectrum of fluctuations in the little bang
• Nonlinear amplification of instabilities with longitudinal expansion
• Nonthermal fixed points and solitons in a one-dimensional Bose gas
• Universal scaling of unequal-time correlation functions in ultracold Bose gases far from equilibrium
• Broken phase scalar effective potential and Phi-derivable approximations
• Non-equilibrium Quantum Spin Dynamics from 2PI Functional Integral Techniques in the Schwinger Boson Representation
• Far from equilibrium field theory for strongly coupled light and matter: dynamics of frustrated multi-mode cavity QED
• Resummations in the Bloch-Nordsieck model
• Universal late-time dynamics in isolated one-dimensional statistical systems with topological excitations
• A critical look at the role of the bare parameters in the renormalization of Phi-derivable approximations
• Nonequilibrium 2PI evolution of the O(N) model with longitudinal expansion
• Topological Defects in Quantum Field Theory with Matrix Product States
• The Kibble Zurek Mechanism of Topological Defect Formation in Quantum Field Theory with Matrix Product States