Dynamics of a quantum phase transition in the random Ising model

Jacek Dziarmaga

Published 2006-03-30, updated 2006-04-04Version 2

A quantum phase transition from paramagnetic to ferromagnetic phase is driven by a time-dependent external magnetic field. For any rate of the transition the evolution is non-adiabatic and finite density of defects is excited in the ferromagnetic state. The density of excitations has only logarithmic dependence on the transition rate. This is much weaker than any usual power law scaling predicted for pure systems by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism.