Universality of Phase Transition Dynamics: Topological Defects from Symmetry Breaking

Understand

In the course of a non-equilibrium continuous phase transition, the dynamics ceases to be adiabatic in the vicinity of the critical point as a result of the critical slowing down (the divergence of the relaxation time in the neighborhood of the critical point).

• This enforces a local choice of the broken symmetry and can lead to the formation of topological defects.
• The Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM) was developed to describe the associated nonequilibrium dynamics and to estimate the density of defects as a function of the quench rate through the transition.
• During recent years, several new experiments investigating formation of defects in phase transitions induced by a quench both in classical and quantum mechanical systems were carried out.