Renormalization group approach to dynamic phase transitions

by Ludwig Mathey (Univ. Hamburg)

Thursday 4 Apr 2013, 16:30 → 17:30 Europe/Berlin

Seminar room 2 (DESY Hamburg)

I describe our analytical approach of describing a dynamic Kosterlitz-Thouless transition with a real-time renormalization group approach. In a recent publication we considered a quantum quench in ultra-cold atomic gases in two dimensions, which ramps the system across the phase transition. We demonstrate that the relaxational dynamics that follows this quench is well-described by our renormalization group approach. We compare our predictions with a numerical implementation of the Truncated Wigner Approximation, which we use to simulate the time evolution of several correlation functions, which can be measured via matter wave interference in these experiments. Our concrete proposal to detect this dynamic phase transition and its properties consists of a realistic setup which utilizes matter-wave interferometry of ultra-cold atoms to measure the time evolution of the correlation functions.