Quenching the Kitaev honeycomb model

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-equilibrium dynamics of the Kitaev honeycomb model, revealing rapid loss of magnetic order and the emergence of a valence bond solid, with anisotropy leading to a long-lived prethermal regime with oscillations.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the dynamical behavior of the Kitaev model, especially the prethermal regime under anisotropy, and characterizes the absence of dynamical phase transitions.

Findings

Rapid loss of antiferromagnetic order in isotropic case

Emergence of a valence bond solid steady state

Prethermal regime with oscillations under anisotropy

Abstract

I studied the non-equilibrium response of an initial N\'{e}el state under time evolution with the Kitaev honeycomb model. With isotropic interactions ($J_x = J_y = J_z$) the system quickly loses its antiferromagnetic order and crosses over into a steady state valence bond solid, which can be inferred from the long-range dimer correlations. There is no signature of a dynamical phase transition. Upon including anisotropy ($J_x = J_y \neq J_z$), an exponentially long prethermal regime appears with persistent magnetization oscillations whose period derives from an effective toric code.