Quantum Quenches in Free Field Theory: Universal Scaling at Any Rate

Abstract

Quantum quenches display universal scaling in several regimes. For quenches which start from a gapped phase and cross a critical point, with a rate slow compared to the initial gap, many systems obey Kibble-Zurek scaling. More recently, a different scaling behaviour has been shown to occur when the quench rate is fast compared to all other physical scales, but still slow compared to the UV cutoff. We investigate the passage from fast to slow quenches in scalar and fermionic free field theories with time dependent masses for which the dynamics can be solved exactly for all quench rates. We find that renormalized one point functions smoothly cross over between the regimes.

40 pages; v2: a bit late, but it includes minor modifications to match published version

References in corpus (6)

• Defect formation beyond Kibble-Zurek mechanism and holography
• Dynamical non-ergodic scaling in continuous finite-order quantum phase transitions
• Space-time renormalization in phase transition dynamics
• Smooth and fast versus instantaneous quenches in quantum field theory
• Thermalization with chemical potentials, and higher spin black holes
• Dynamic trapping near a quantum critical point

Cited by in corpus (28)

• Complexity as a novel probe of quantum quenches: universal scalings and purifications
• Holographic Complexity in Vaidya Spacetimes I
• Bell violation in the Sky
• Entanglement Evolution in Lifshitz-type Scalar Theories
• Kibble-Zurek mechanism in the Ising Field Theory
• An exactly solvable quench protocol for integrable spin models
• Holographic Quenches in a Confined Phase
• Varying quench dynamics in the transverse Ising chain: the Kibble-Zurek, saturated, and pre-saturated regimes
• Quantum Quench in Non-relativistic Fermionic Field Theory: Harmonic traps and 2d String Theory
• Emergent symmetries in prethermal phases of periodically driven quantum systems
• The Cosmological OTOC: A New Proposal for Quantifying Auto-Correlated Random Non-Chaotic Primordial Fluctuations
• Circuit Complexity in an interacting quenched Quantum Field Theory
• Non-equilibrium scalar field dynamics starting from Fock states: Absence of thermalization in one dimensional phonons coupled to fermions
• Entanglement in interacting quenched two-body coupled oscillator system
• On fast quenches and spinning correlators
• Operator thermalisation in $d>2$: Huygens or resurgence
• Complexity and scaling in quantum quench in $1+1$ dimensional fermionic field theories
• Universal scaling of work statistics for quantum quenches
• Local quench within the Keldysh technique
• Momentum-space entanglement after smooth quenches
• Scrambling under quench
• Entanglement after Quantum Quenches in Lifshitz Scalar Theories
• On quantum quenches at one loop
• Quantum quench, large N, and symmetry restoration
• Cosmological Geometric Phase From Pure Quantum States: A study without/with having Bell's inequality violation
• Order parameter dynamics of the non-linear sigma model in the large $N$ limit
• Quantum quench and thermalization to GGE in arbitrary dimensions and the odd-even effect
• Memories of quenches in operator mixing