Generalized dynamic scaling for quantum critical relaxation in imaginary time

TL;DR

This paper introduces a universal characteristic function to describe the imaginary-time relaxation dynamics near quantum critical points, extending classical critical dynamics concepts to quantum systems.

Contribution

It proposes a universal characteristic function for quantum critical relaxation, applicable to various models near the quantum critical point, and confirms its universality through numerical simulations.

Findings

The characteristic function describes both short- and long-time dynamics.

Numerical results support the universality of the characteristic function.

The approach extends classical critical dynamics to quantum systems.

Abstract

We study the imaginary-time relaxation critical dynamics of a quantum system with a vanishing initial correlation length and an arbitrary initial order parameter $M_0$. We find that in quantum critical dynamics, the behavior of $M_0$ under scale transformations deviates from a simple power-law, which was proposed for very small $M_0$ previously. A universal characteristic function is then suggested to describe the rescaled initial magnetization, similar to classical critical dynamics. This characteristic function is shown to be able to describe the quantum critical dynamics in both short- and long-time stages of the evolution. The one-dimensional transverse-field Ising model is employed to numerically determine the specific form of the characteristic function. We demonstrate that it is applicable as long as the system is in the vicinity of the quantum critical point. The universality of the characteristic function is confirmed by numerical simulations of models belonging to the same universality class.