Universal Dynamics Near Quantum Critical Points

Vladimir Gritsev, Anatoli Polkovnikov

Published 2009-10-19, updated 2010-03-19Version 3

We give an overview of the scaling of density of quasi-particles and excess energy (heat) for nearly adiabatic dynamics near quantum critical points (QCPs). In particular we discuss both sudden quenches of small amplitude and slow sweeps across the QCP. We show close connection between universal scaling of these quantities with the scaling behavior of the fidelity susceptibility and its generalizations. In particular we argue that the Kibble-Zurek scaling can be easily understood using this concept. We discuss how these scalings can be derived within the adiabatic perturbation theory and how using this approach slow and fast quenches can be treated within the same framework. We also describe modifications of these scalings for finite temperature quenches and emphasize the important role of statistics of low-energy excitations. In the end we mention some connections between adiabatic dynamics near critical points with dynamics associated with space-time singularities in the metrics, which naturally emerges in such areas as cosmology and string theory.