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Condensed Matter > Statistical Mechanics
Title: Role of boundary conditions in the full counting statistics of topological defects after crossing a continuous phase transition
(Submitted on 8 Jul 2022 (v1), last revised 11 Oct 2022 (this version, v2))
Abstract: In a scenario of spontaneous symmetry breaking in finite time, topological defects are generated at a density that scale with the driving time according to the Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM). Signatures of universality beyond the KZM have recently been unveiled: The number distribution of topological defects has been shown to follow a binomial distribution, in which all cumulants inherit the universal power-law scaling with the quench rate, with cumulant rations being constant. In this work, we analyze the role of boundary conditions in the statistics of topological defects. In particular, we consider a lattice system with nearest-neighbor interactions subject to soft anti-periodic, open, and periodic boundary conditions implemented by an energy penalty term. We show that for fast and moderate quenches, the cumulants of the kink number distribution present a universal scaling with the quench rate that is independent of the boundary conditions except by an additive term, that becomes prominent in the limit of slow quenches, leading to the breaking of power-law behavior. We test our theoretical predictions with a one-dimensional scalar theory on a lattice.
Submission history
From: Fernando Gomez-Ruiz [view email][v1] Fri, 8 Jul 2022 09:55:05 GMT (567kb,D)
[v2] Tue, 11 Oct 2022 09:53:44 GMT (566kb,D)
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