Real-time dynamics induced by quenches across the quantum critical points in gapless Fermi systems with a magnetic impurity

TL;DR

This paper investigates the real-time dynamics of quantum critical points in gapless Fermi systems with magnetic impurities, revealing how local properties equilibrate after quenches and comparing numerical and analytical approaches.

Contribution

It provides a detailed numerical and analytical study of non-equilibrium dynamics across quantum critical points in the pseudogap Anderson model, highlighting deviations from thermal equilibrium.

Findings

Local properties equilibrate towards steady states after quenches.

Systematic deviations from thermal equilibrium depend on proximity to critical coupling.

Universal behavior of local double occupancy during interaction quenches.

Abstract

The energy-dependent scattering of fermions from a localized orbital at an energy-dependent rate $\Gamma(\epsilon)\propto |\epsilon|^r$ gives rise to quantum critical points (QCPs) in the pseudogap single-impurity Anderson model separating a local moment phase with an unscreened spin moment from a strong-coupling phase which slightly deviates from the screened phase of standard Kondo problem. Using the time-dependent numerical renormalization group (TD-NRG) approach we show that local dynamic properties always equilibrate towards a steady-state value even for quenches across the QCP but with systematic deviations from the thermal equilibrium depending on the distance to the critical coupling. Local non-equilibrium properties are presented for interaction quenches and hybridization quenches. We augment our numerical data by an analytical calculation that becomes exact at short times and find excellent agreement between the numerics and the analytical theory. For interaction quenches within the screened phase we find a universal function for the time-dependent local double occupancy. We trace back the discrepancy between our results and the data obtained by a time-dependent Gutzwiller variational approach to restrictions of the wave-function ansatz in the Gutzwiller theory: while the NRG ground states properly account for the formation of an extended spin moment which decouples from the system in the unscreened phase, the Gutzwiller ansatz only allows the formation of the spin moment on the local impurity orbital.