Universal statistics of vortices in a newborn holographic superconductor: beyond the Kibble-Zurek mechanism

Adolfo del Campo, Fernando Javier Gómez-Ruiz, Zhi-Hong Li, Chuan-Yin Xia, Hua-Bi Zeng, Hai-Qing Zhang
2021 Journal of High Energy Physics  
Traversing a continuous phase transition at a finite rate leads to the breakdown of adiabatic dynamics and the formation of topological defects, as predicted by the celebrated Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM). We investigate universal signatures beyond the KZM, by characterizing the distribution of vortices generated in a thermal quench leading to the formation of a holographic superconductor. The full counting statistics of vortices is described by a binomial distribution, in which the mean value
more » ... s dictated by the KZM and higher-order cumulants share the universal power-law scaling with the quench time. Extreme events associated with large fluctuations no longer exhibit a power-law behavior with the quench time and are characterized by a universal form of the Weibull distribution for different quench rates.
doi:10.1007/jhep06(2021)061 fatcat:zy3hum6anbeo3gr56o2cb3wqna