Large deviations and universality in quantum quenches

TL;DR

This paper investigates the large deviations in the work done during quantum quenches, revealing universal behavior near critical points and a quantum-specific transition in the statistics for bosonic systems.

Contribution

It uncovers universal features of large deviations near critical points and identifies a quantum transition in work statistics for bosonic systems, extending understanding of quantum thermodynamics.

Findings

Universal large deviations near critical points related to the Casimir effect

Quantum nature dominates large deviations above the mean work

Transition from exponential to power-law work statistics in bosonic systems

Abstract

We study the large deviations statistics of the intensive work done by changing globally a control parameter in a thermally isolated quantum many-body system. We show that, upon approaching a critical point, large deviations well below the mean work display universal features related to the critical Casimir effect in the corresponding classical system. Large deviations well above the mean are, instead, of quantum nature and not captured by the quantum-to-classical correspondence. For a bosonic system we show that in this latter regime a transition from exponential to power-law statistics, analogous to the equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation, may occur depending on the parameters of the quench and on the spatial dimensionality.