Emergence of classical structures from the quantum vacuum

Mainak Mukhopadhyay, Tanmay Vachaspati, George Zahariade

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

After a quantum phase transition, the quantum vacuum can break up to form classical topological defects. We examine this process for scalar field models with Z2 symmetry for different quench rates for the phase transition. We find that the number density of kinks at late times universally scales as Cm1/2t-1/2, where m is a mass scale in the model and C≈0.22; it does not depend on the quench timescale in contrast to the Kibble-Zurek scaling for thermal phase transitions. A subleading correction ?t-3/2 to the kink density depends on the details of the phase transition.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number056021
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume102
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2020

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

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