A thermal quench induces spatial inhomogeneities in a holographic superconductor

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a temperature quench in a holographic superconductor leads to spontaneous spatial inhomogeneities in the order parameter, revealing new dynamical behavior beyond uniform assumptions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that spatial inhomogeneities naturally develop after a quench, challenging the common uniform field assumption in holographic superconductor models.

Findings

Order parameter develops spatial oscillations over time.

Inhomogeneous solutions have lower free energy than homogeneous ones.

Spatial inhomogeneities could be observable experimentally.

Abstract

Holographic duality is a powerful tool to investigate the far-from equilibrium dynamics of superfluids and other phases of quantum matter. For technical reasons it is usually assumed that, after a quench, the far-from equilibrium fields are still spatially uniform. Here we relax this assumption and study the time evolution of a holographic superconductor after a temperature quench but allowing spatial variations of the order parameter. Even though the initial state and the quench are spatially uniform we show the order parameter develops spatial oscillations with an amplitude that increases with time until it reaches a stationary value. The free energy of these inhomogeneous solutions is lower than that of the homogeneous ones. Therefore the former corresponds to the physical configuration that could be observed experimentally.