Kibble-Zurek dynamics beyond the thermodynamic limit
The Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM) predicts the universal scaling of topological defect densities generated during continuous phase transitions, a result derived in the thermodynamic limit of homogeneous systems. Yet real materials are intrinsically finite and heterogeneous, raising the question of how nonequilibrium universality survives outside this idealized limit. Here we establish an ensemble-finite-size extension of the KZM that describes critical dynamics in collections of independent finite subsystems with distributed sizes. We test this framework using a polycrystalline model system undergoing a symmetry-breaking transition. We find that the density of topological vortices follows an apparent power law with an exponent approximately half that observed in single crystals. This reduced exponent emerges quantitatively from averaging over the experimentally measured grain-size distribution, without fitting to the measured vortex densities. Our results demonstrate that finite-size effects do not simply suppress KZ scaling but reorganize it into an emergent statistical scaling regime governed by system-size heterogeneity. This establishes microstructure and geometry as control parameters of nonequilibrium critical dynamics and provides a general strategy to engineer scaling behaviour in complex materials.