Quantum spin fluctuations in dynamical quantum phase transitions

Quantum states beyond thermodynamic equilibrium represent fascinating and cutting-edge research. However, the behavior of dynamical quantum phase transitions in complex open quantum systems remains poorly understood. Here, using state-of-the-art numerical approaches, we show that by quenching the qubits-oscillator coupling in a dissipative two-qubit Rabi model, the system undergoes dynamical quantum phase transitions. These transitions are characterized by kinks in the Loschmidt echo rate function at parameter values close to a thermodynamic quantum phase transition and are associated with distinct entanglement features. The two classes of critical phenomena depend on qubit interactions and entanglement, revealing different behaviors of the critical exponent of the first kink of the Loschmidt echo for interacting versus non-interacting qubits. This research enhances our understanding of non-equilibrium quantum systems and offers potential applications in quantum sensing and metrology, as it examines how dynamical transitions can enhance the sensitivity of the Loschmidt echo to the quench parameters.

Discrete time crystals are related to non-equilibrium dynamics of periodically driven quantum many-body systems where the discrete time translation symmetry of the Hamiltonian is spontaneously broken into another discrete symmetry. Recently, the concept of phase transitions has been extended to non-equilibrium dynamics of time-independent systems induced by a quantum quench, i.e. a sudden change of some parameter of the Hamiltonian. There, the return probability of a system to the ground state reveals singularities in time which are dubbed dynamical quantum phase transitions. We show that the quantum quench in a discrete time crystal leads to dynamical quantum phase transitions where the return probability of a periodically driven system to a Floquet eigenstate before the quench reveals singularities in time. It indicates that dynamical quantum phase transitions are not restricted to time-independent systems and can be also observed in systems that are periodically driven. We discuss how the phenomenon can be observed in ultra-cold atomic gases.

A dynamical quantum phase transition can occur during time evolution of sudden quenched quantum systems across a phase transition. It corresponds to the nonanalytic behavior at a critical time of the rate function of the quantum state return amplitude, analogous to nonanalyticity of the free energy density at the critical temperature in macroscopic systems. A variety of many-body systems can be represented in momentum space as a spin-1/2 state evolving on the Bloch sphere, where each momentum mode is decoupled and thus can be simulated independently by a single qubit. Here, we report the observation of a dynamical quantum phase transition in a superconducting qubit simulation of the quantum quench dynamics of many-body systems. We take the Ising model with a transverse field as an example for demonstration. In our experiment, the spin state, which is initially polarized longitudinally, evolves based on a Hamiltonian with adjustable parameters depending on the momentum and strength of the transverse magnetic field. The time evolving quantum state is read out by state tomography. Evidence of dynamical quantum phase transitions, such as paths of time evolution states on the Bloch sphere, non-analytic behavior of the dynamical free energy and the emergence of Skyrmion lattice in momentum-time space, is observed. The experimental data agrees well with theoretical and numerical calculations. The experiment demonstrates for the first time explicitly the topological invariant, both topologically trivial and non-trivial, for dynamical quantum phase transitions. Our results show that the quantum phase transitions of this class of many-body systems can be simulated successfully with a single qubit by varying certain control parameters over the corresponding momentum range.

In this work we revisit collapse and revival oscillations in superfluids suddenly quenched by strong local interactions for the case of a one-dimensional Bose-Hubbard model. As the main result we identify the inherent nonequilibrium quantum many-body character of these oscillations by revealing that they are controlled by a sequence of underlying dynamical quantum phase transitions in the real-time evolution after the quench, which manifest as temporal nonanalyticities in return probabilities or Loschmidt echos. Specifically, we find that the time scale of the collapse and revival oscillations is, firstly, set by the frequency at which dynamical quantum phase transitions appear, and is, secondly, of emergent nonequilibrium nature, since it is not only determined by the final Hamiltonian but also depends on the initial condition.

Nonanalytic points in the return probability of a quantum state as a function of time, known as dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs), have received great attention in recent years, but the understanding of their mechanism is still incomplete. In our recent work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 040602 (2021)], we demonstrated that one-dimensional DQPTs can be produced by two distinct mechanisms, namely semiclassical precession and entanglement generation, leading to the definition of precession (pDQPTs) and entanglement (eDQPTs) dynamical quantum phase transitions. In this manuscript, we extend and investigate the notion of p- and eDQPTs in two-dimensional systems by considering semi-infinite ladders of varying width. For square lattices, we find that pDQPTs and eDQPTs persist and are characterized by similar phenomenology as in 1D: pDQPTs are associated with a magnetization sign change and a wide entanglement gap, while eDQPTs correspond to suppressed local observables and avoided crossings in the entanglement spectrum. However, DQPTs show higher sensitivity to the ladder width and other details, challenging the extrapolation to the thermodynamic limit especially for eDQPTs. Moving to honeycomb lattices, we also demonstrate that lattices with an odd number of nearest neighbors give rise to phenomenologies beyond the one-dimensional classification.

In this paper, we investigate the dynamical quantum phase transitions appearing in the Loschmidt echo and the time-dependent order parameter of a quantum system of harmonically coupled degenerate bosons as a function of the power-law decay $\sigma$ of long-range interactions. Following a sudden quench, the nonequilibrium dynamics of this system are governed by a set of nonlinear coupled Ermakov equations. To solve them, we develop an analytical approximation valid at late times. Based on this approximation, we show that the emergence of a dynamical quantum phase transition hinges on the generation of a finite mass gap following the quench, starting from a massless initial state. In general, we can define two distinct dynamical phases characterized by the finiteness of the post-quench mass gap. The Loschmidt echo exhibits periodical nonanalytic cusps whenever the initial state has a vanishing mass gap and the final state has a finite mass gap. These cusps are shown to coincide with the maxima of the time-dependent long-range correlations.

Dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) at critical times appear as nonanalyticities during nonequilibrium quantum real-time evolution. Although there is evidence for a close relationship between DQPTs and equilibrium phase transitions, a major challenge is still to connect to fundamental concepts such as scaling and universality. In this work, renormalization group transformations in complex parameter space are formulated for quantum quenches in Ising models showing that the DQPTs are critical points associated with unstable fixed points of equilibrium Ising models. Therefore, these DQPTs obey scaling and universality. On the basis of numerical simulations, signatures of these DQPTs in the dynamical buildup of spin correlations are found with an associated power-law scaling determined solely by the fixed point's universality class. An outlook is given on how to explore this dynamical scaling experimentally in systems of trapped ions.

We report dynamical quantum phase transition portrait in the alternating field transverse XY spin chain with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction by investigating singularities in the Loschmidt echo and the corresponding rate function after a sudden quench of system parameters. Unlike the Ising model, the analysis of Loschmidt echo yields non-uniformly spaced transition times in this model. Comparative study between the equilibrium and the dynamical quantum phase transitions in this case reveals that there are quenches where one occurs without the other, and the regimes where they co-exist. However, such transitions happen only when quenching is performed across at least a single gapless or critical line. Contrary to equilibrium phase transitions, bipartite entanglement measures do not turn out to be useful for the detection, while multipartite entanglement emerges as a good identifier of this transition when the quench is done from a disordered phase of this model.

Confinement is an intriguing phenomenon prevalent in condensed matter and high-energy physics. Exploring its effect on the far-from-equilibrium criticality of quantum many-body systems is of great interest from both a fundamental and a technological point of view. Here, we employ large-scale uniform matrix product state calculations to show that a qualitative change in the type of dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) accompanies the confinement-deconfinement transition in three paradigmatic models: the power-law interacting quantum Ising chain, the two-dimensional quantum Ising model, and the spin-S U(1) quantum link model. By tuning a confining parameter in these models, it is found that () DQPTs arise as a signature of (de)confinement. Whereas manifold DQPTs are associated with a sign change of the order parameter, their branch counterparts are not, but rather occur even when the order parameter exhibits considerably constrained dynamics. Our conclusions can be tested in modern quantum-simulation platforms, such as ion-trap setups and cold-atom experiments of gauge theories.

We study the mode dynamics of a generic quadratic fermionic Hamiltonian under a sudden quench protocol in momentum space. Modes with zero energy at any given time, $t$, are referred to as dynamical critical modes. Among all zero-energy modes, spin-flip symmetry is restored in the eigenvector corresponding to selected zero-energy modes. This symmetry restoration is used to define the dynamical quantum phase transition (DQPT). This shows that the occurrence of these dynamical critical modes is necessary but not sufficient for a DQPT. We show that the conditions on the quench protocol and time for such dynamical symmetry restoration are the same as the divergence of the rate function and integer jump in the dynamical topological order parameter, which have been the traditional identifiers of a DQPT. This perspective also naturally explains when one or both of DQPT and ground-state quantum phase transitions will occur.

We present two approaches to the dynamics of a quench-induced phase transition in the quantum Ising model. One follows the standard treatment of thermodynamic second order phase transitions but applies it to the quantum phase transitions. The other approach is quantum, and uses Landau-Zener formula for transition probabilities in avoided level crossings. We show that predictions of the two approaches of how the density of defects scales with the quench rate are compatible, and discuss the ensuing insights into the dynamics of quantum phase transitions.

Interacting many-body systems that are driven far away from equilibrium can exhibit phase transitions between dynamically emerging quantum phases, which manifest as singularities in the Loschmidt echo. Whether and under which conditions such dynamical transitions occur in higher-dimensional systems with spontaneously broken continuous symmetries is largely elusive thus far. Here, we study the dynamics of the Loschmidt echo in the three dimensional O(N) model following a quantum quench from a symmetry breaking initial state. The O(N) model exhibits a dynamical transition in the asymptotic steady state, separating two phases with a finite and vanishing order parameter, that is associated with the broken symmetry. We analytically calculate the rate function of the Loschmidt echo and find that it exhibits periodic kink singularities when this dynamical steady-state transition is crossed. The singularities arise exactly at the zero-crossings of the oscillating order parameter. As a consequence, the appearance of the kink singularities in the transient dynamics is directly linked to a dynamical transition in the order parameter. Furthermore, we argue, that our results for dynamical quantum phase transitions in the O(N) model are general and apply to generic systems with continuous symmetry breaking.

The dynamical and topological properties of non-Hermitian systems have attracted great attention in recent years. In this work, we establish an intrinsic connection between two classes of intriguing phenomena—topological phases and dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs)—in non-Hermitian systems. Focusing on one-dimensional models with chiral symmetry, we find DQPTs following the quench from a trivial to a non-Hermitian topological phase. Moreover, the critical momenta and critical time of the DQPTs are found to be directly related to the topological invariants of the non-Hermitian system. We further demonstrate our theory in three prototypical non-Hermitian lattice models, the lossy Kitaev chain (LKC), the LKC with next-nearest-neighbor hoppings, and the nonreciprocal Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model. Finally, we suggest a proposal to experimentally verify the found connection by a nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond.

We introduce a first-order quantum-phase-transition model, which exhibits giant sensitivity χ∝N2 at the critical point. Exploiting this effect, we propose a quantum critical detector (QCD) to amplify weak input signals. The time-dynamic QCD functions by triggering a first-order dynamical quantum phase transition in a system of spins with long-range interactions coupled to a bosonic mode. We numerically demonstrate features of the dynamical quantum phase transition, which leads to a time-dependent quantum gain. We also show the linear scaling with the spin number N in both the quantum gain and the corresponding signal-to-quantum noise ratio of this QCD. Our QCD can be a resource for metrology, weak signal amplification, and single photon detection.

We propose a new computational method of the Loschmidt amplitude in a generic spin system on the basis of the complex semiclassical analysis on the spin-coherent state path integral. We demonstrate how the dynamical transitions emerge in the time evolution of the Loschmidt amplitude for the infinite-range transverse Ising model with a longitudinal field, exposed by a quantum quench of the transverse field $\Gamma$ from $\infty$ or $0$. For both initial conditions, we obtain the dynamical phase diagrams that show the presence or absence of the dynamical transition in the plane of transverse field after a quantum quench and the longitudinal field. The results of semiclassical analysis are verified by numerical experiments. Experimental observation of our findings on the dynamical transition is also discussed.