Locality of spontaneous symmetry breaking and universal spacing distribution of topological defects formed across a phase transition
English
Del Campo Echevarria, Adolfo[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM) > Department of Physics and Materials Science (DPHYMS) >]
Gómez-Ruiz, Fernando Javier[Instituto de Física Fundamental IFF-CSIC, Calle Serrano 113b, Madrid 28006, Spain > > > ; Donostia International Physics Center, E-20018 San Sebastián, Spain]
Zhang, Hai-Qing[Center for Gravitational Physics, Department of Space Science & International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China]
[en] The crossing of a continuous phase transition results in the formation of topological defects with a density predicted by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM). We characterize the spatial distribution of pointlike topological defects in the resulting nonequilibrium state and model it using a Poisson point process in arbitrary spatial dimensions with KZM density. Numerical simulations in a one-dimensional φ4 theory unveil short-distance defect-defect corrections stemming from the kink excluded volume, while in two spatial dimensions, our model accurately describes the vortex spacing distribution in a strongly coupled superconductor indicating the suppression of defect-defect spatial correlations.
[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine (FSTM) > Department of Physics and Materials Science (DPHYMS) >]
