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Orientational Transition in a Liquid Crystal Triggered by the Thermodynamic Growth of Interfacial Wetting Sheets
Published on: May 15, 2017
Dynamical phase transitions in the collisionless pre-thermal states of isolated quantum systems: theory and
Jamir Marino1, Martin Eckstein2, Matthew S Foster3,4
1Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, D-55099 Mainz, Germany.
Abstract:
We overview the concept of dynamical phase transitions (DPTs) in isolated quantum systems quenched out of equilibrium. We focus on non-equilibrium transitions characterized by an order parameter, which features qualitatively distinct temporal behavior on the two sides of a certain dynamical critical point. DPTs are currently mostly understood as long-lived prethermal phenomena in a regime where inelastic collisions are incapable to thermalize the system. The latter enables the dynamics to substain phases that explicitly break detailed balance and therefore cannot be encompassed by traditional thermodynamics. Our presentation covers both cold atoms as well as condensed matter systems. We revisit a broad plethora of platforms exhibiting pre-thermal DPTs, which become theoretically tractable in a certain limit, such as for a large number of particles, large number of order parameter components, or large spatial dimension. The systems we explore include, among others, quantum magnets with collective interactions,ϕ4quantum field theories, and Fermi-Hubbard models. A section dedicated to experimental explorations of DPTs in condensed matter and AMO systems connects this large variety of theoretical models.
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