Activating critical exponent spectra with a slow drive

Abstract

We uncover an aspect of the Kibble-Zurek phenomenology, according to which the spectrum of critical exponents of a classical or quantum phase transition is revealed, by driving the system slowly in directions parallel to the phase boundary. This result is obtained in a renormalization group formulation of the Kibble-Zurek scenario, and based on a connection between the breaking of adiabaticity and the exiting of the critical domain via new relevant directions induced by the slow drive. The mechanism does not require fine tuning, in the sense that scaling originating from irrelevant operators is observable in an extensive regime of drive parameters. Therefore, it should be observable in quantum simulators or dynamically tunable condensed-matter platforms.