The near-critical unitary dynamics of quantum Ising spin chains in transversal and longitudinal magnetic fields is studied using an artificial neural network representation of the wave function. A focus is set on strong spatial correlations which build up in the system following a quench into the vicinity of the quantum critical point. We compare correlations observed following reinforcement learning of the network states with analytical solutions in integrable cases and tDMRG simulations, as well as with predictions from a semi-classical discrete Truncated Wigner analysis. While the semi-classical approach excells mainly at short times and for small transverse fields, the neural-network representation provides accurate results for a much wider range of parameters. Where long-range spin-spin correlations build up in the long-time dynamics we find qualitative agreement with exact results while quantitative deviations are of similar size as for the semi-classically predicted correlations, and slow convergence is observed when increasing the number of hidden neurons.
We use NMR quantum simulators to study antiferromagnetic Ising spin chains undergoing quantum phase transitions. Taking advantage of the sensitivity of the systems near criticality, we detect the critical points of the transitions using a direct measurement of the Loschmidt echo. We test our simulators for spin chains of even and odd numbers of spins, and compare the experimental results to theoretical predictions.
The semi-classical discrete truncated Wigner approximation (dTWA) has recently been proposed as a simulation method for spin-$1/2$ systems. While it appears to provide a powerful approach which shows promising results in higher dimensions and for systems with long-range interactions, its performance is still not well understood in general. Here we perform a systematic benchmark on the one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model and point to limitations of the approximation arising after sudden quenches into the quantum critical regime. Our procedure allows to identify the limitations of the s…
We consider thermal transport between two reservoirs coupled by a quantum Ising chain as a model for non-equilibrium physics induced in quantum-critical many-body systems. By deriving rate equations based on exact expressions for the quasiparticle pairs generated during the transport, we observe signatures of the underlying quantum phase transition in the steady-state energy current already at finite reservoir temperatures.
Several mean-field computations have revealed the existence of an out of equilibrium dynamical transition induced by quantum quenching an isolated system starting from its symmetry broken phase. In this work we focus on the quantum phi^4 N-component field theory. By taking into account dynamical fluctuations at the Hartree-Fock level, corresponding to the leading order of the 1/N expansion, we derive the critical properties of the dynamical transition beyond mean-field theory (including at finite temperature). We find diverging time and length-scales, dynamic scaling and aging. Finally, we unv…
We consider the time evolution of the gaps of the entanglement spectrum for a block of consecutive sites in finite transverse field Ising chains after sudden quenches of the magnetic field. We provide numerical evidence that, whenever we quench at or across the quantum critical point, the time evolution of the ratios of these gaps allows to obtain universal information. They encode the low-lying gaps of the conformal spectrum of the Ising boundary conformal field theory describing the spatial bipartition within the imaginary time path integral approach to global quenches at the quantum critica…
We present a quantitative semi-classical theory for the non-equilibrium dynamics of transverse Ising chains after quantum quenches, in particular sudden changes of the transverse field strength. We obtain accurate predictions for the quench dependent relaxation times and correlation lengths, and also about the recurrence times and quasiperiodicity of time dependent correlations in finite systems with open or periodic boundary conditions. We compare the quantiative predictions of our semi-classical theory (local magnetization, equal time bulk-bulk and surface-to-bulk correlations, and bulk auto…
Much has been learned about universal properties of entanglement entropies in ground states of quantum many-body lattice systems. Here we unveil universal properties of the average bipartite entanglement entropy of eigenstates of the paradigmatic quantum Ising model in one dimension. The leading term exhibits a volume-law scaling that we argue is universal for translationally invariant quadratic models. The subleading term is constant at the critical field for the quantum phase transition and vanishes otherwise (in the thermodynamic limit), i.e., the critical field can be identified from suble…
We study quantum phase transitions in transverse-field Ising spin chains in which the couplings are random but hyperuniform, in the sense that their large-scale fluctuations are suppressed. We construct a one-parameter family of disorder models in which long-wavelength fluctuations are increasingly suppressed as a parameter $α$ is tuned. For $α= 0$, one recovers the familiar infinite-randomness critical point. For $0 < α< 1$, we find a line of infinite-randomness critical points with continuously varying critical exponents; however, the Griffiths phases that flank the critical point at $α= 0$ …
Dynamic correlation and response functions of classical and quantum systems in thermal equilibrium are connected by fluctuation-dissipation theorems, which allow an alternative definition of their (unique) temperature. Motivated by this fundamental property, we revisit the issue of thermalization of closed many-body quantum systems long after a sudden quench, focussing on the non-equilibrium dynamics of the Ising chain in a critical transverse field. We show the emergence of distinct observable-dependent effective temperatures, which rule out Gibbs thermalization in a strict sense but might st…
We investigate the ground-state Riemannian metric and the cyclic quantum distance of an inhomogeneous quantum Ising spin-1/2 chain in a transverse field. This model can be diagonalized by using a general canonical transformation to the fermionic Hamiltonian mapped from the spin system. The ground-state Riemannian metric is derived exactly on a parameter manifold ring $S^1$, which is introduced by performing a gauge transformation to the spin Hamiltonian through a twist operator. The ground-state cyclic quantum distance and the second derivative of the ground-state energy are studied in differe…
Based on the obtained exact results we systematically study the quench dynamics of a one-dimensional spin-1/2 transverse field Ising model with zero- and finite-temperature initial states. We focus on the magnetization of the system after a sudden change of the external field and a coherent time-evolution process. With a zero-temperature initial state, the quench magnetic susceptibility as a function of the initial field strength exhibits strongly similar scaling behaviors to those of the static magnetic susceptibility, and the quench magnetic susceptibility as a function of the final field st…
A conventional quantum phase transition (QPT) occurs not only at zero temperature, but also exhibits finite-temperature quantum criticality. Motivated by the discovery of the pseudo-Hermiticity of non-Hermitian systems, we explore the finite-temperature quantum criticality in a non-Hermitian PT -symmetric Ising model. We present the complete set of exact eigenstates of the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, based on which the mixed-state fidelity in the context of biorthogonal bases is calculated. Analytical and numerical results show that the fidelity approach to finite-temperature QPT can be extende…
We study the quantum Ising model on the Sierpiński triangle, whose Hausdorff dimension is $\log 3/ \log 2 \approx 1.585$, and demonstrate that it undergoes second-order phase transition with scaling relations satisfied precisely. We also study the quantum $3$-state Potts model on the Sierpiński triangle and find first-order phase transition, which is consistent with a prediction from $ε$-expansion that the transition becomes first-order for $D > 1.3$. We then compute critical exponents of the Ising model on higher-dimensional Sierpiński pyramids with various Hausdorff dimension via Monte-Carlo…
We examine the dynamics after a sudden quench in the magnetic field of the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model. Starting from the groundstate and by employing the time-dependent fidelity, we see manifestly different dynamics are present if the system is quenched through the critical point. Furthermore, we show that the average work shows no sensitivity to the quantum phase transition, however the free energy and irreversible work show markedly different rates of change in each phase. Finally, we assess the spectral function showing the fundamental excitations that dictate the dynamics of the post-quenc…
We study the quantum relaxation of the two-dimensional transverse-field Ising model after global quenches with a real-time variational Monte Carlo method and address the question whether this non-integrable, two-dimensional system thermalizes or not. We consider both interaction quenches in the paramagnetic phase and field quenches in the ferromagnetic phase and compare the time-averaged probability distributions of non-conserved quantities like magnetization and correlation functions to the thermal distributions according to the canonical Gibbs ensemble obtained with quantum Monte Carlo simul…
