Out-of-equilibrium scaling of the particle density in quantum fermionic wires after a critical quenching of the chemical potential

Abstract

We study the out-of-equilibrium scaling behavior of the particle density in quantum fermionic Kitaev wires, after instantaneous quantum quenches (QQs) of the chemical potential within their quantum critical region. The critical scaling of the ground-state particle density is known to be subleading at its Ising-like quantum transition, hidden by regular and logarithmic terms arising from peculiar mixings with the identity operator. This situation changes along the out-of-equilibrium dynamics arising from QQs of the chemical potential to the critical point, starting from the ground state for Hamiltonian parameters within the critical region. We analytically show that the difference between the post-QQ particle density and its critical value develops an out-of-equilibrium scaling behavior, in terms of the dynamic scaling variable $\theta\sim t/\xi^z$ (where $t>0$ is the post-QQ time, $\xi$ is the length scale of the initial state, and $z$ is the dynamic critical exponent) associated with the post-QQ time evolution. The scaling function turns out to have a peculiar singular behavior in the $\theta\to 0$ limit, apparently related to the anomalous equilibrium scaling behavior of the particle density at the starting point of the QQ protocol. This provides analytical evidence of earlier conjectures on the general emergence of post-QQ dynamic scaling behaviors of the subtracted particle density (supported by numerical finite-size scaling analyses), unlike their equilibrium counterpart which turns out to be dominated by nonuniversal contributions.