Locality of Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking and Universal Spacing Distribution of Topological Defects Formed Across a Phase Transition

Adolfo del Campo, Fernando Javier Gómez-Ruiz, Hai-Qing Zhang

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 spat…