Quantum Institute: Visitor Schedule

The Quantum Lunch is regularly held on Thursdays in the Theoretical Division Conference Room, TA-3, Building 123, Room 121.

The organizing committee includes Malcolm Boshier (P-21), Adolfo del Campo (T-4 & CNLS), Michael Di Rosa (C-PCS), Armin Rahmanisisan (T-4 & CNLS), Changhyun Ryu (P-21) , Nikolai Sinitsyn (T-4), Rolando Somma (T-4), Christopher Ticknor (T-1), and Wojciech Zurek (T-4).

For more information, or to nominate a speaker, contact Adolfo del Campo.

To add your name to the Quantum Lunch email list, contact Ellie Vigil.

Thursday July 11, 2013
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Speaker: Anushya Chandran (Princeton)

Technical Host: Adolfo del Campo

TOPIC: Kibble-Zurek Scaling and String-Net Coarsening in Topologically Ordered Systems

Abstract
In this talk, I consider the non-equilibrium dynamics of topologically ordered systems driven across a continuous phase transition into proximate phases with no, or reduced, topological order. This dynamics exhibits scaling in the spirit of Kibble and Zurek but now without the presence of symmetry breaking and a local order parameter. I will show that the late stages of the process exhibit a slow, coarsening dynamics for the string-net that underlies the physics of the topological phase, a potentially interesting signature of topological order. I will also discuss a time dependent amplification of the energy splitting between topologically degenerate states on closed manifolds. I will illustrate these phenomena in the context of particular phase transitions out of the abelian Z2 topologically ordered phase of the toric code/Z2 gauge theory, and the non-abelian SU(2)_k ordered phases of the relevant Levin-Wen models.