Breakdown of adiabaticity in topological quantum liquids

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strong long-range interactions in topological quantum fluids cause deviations from universal adiabatic behavior, especially when the drive ends at the topological phase boundary, revealing a new breakdown mechanism.

Contribution

It uncovers a novel breakdown of adiabaticity in topological quantum liquids with long-range couplings, contrasting with local systems and highlighting a new excitation scaling behavior.

Findings

Defects scale as $ abla o 0$ in mean-field universality

Excitations become extensive when drive ends at topological boundary

Universal adiabatic behavior breaks down in long-range interacting systems

Abstract

We study the temporal behavior of topological quantum fluids with strong long-range couplings under slow external perturbations, whose rate $\delta$ approaches the quasi-static limit $\delta\to 0$. As expected, due to strong long-range interactions, the system lies in the mean-field universality and the density of defects for drives across the quantum critical point is adiabatic $n_{\rm exc}\propto \delta^{2}$. However, if the drive is instead terminated precisely at the edge of the topological non-trivial phase, the number of generated excitations becomes extensive $n_{\rm exc}\propto O(1)$. This result fundamentally breaks the established universal behavior observed in local topological quantum fluids and demonstrates a novel mechanism for the breakdown of adiabaticity in fermionic systems with strong long-range interactions.