Out-of-horizon correlations following a quench in a relativistic quantum field theory

Kukuljan, Ivan (author), Sotiriadis, Spyros (author), Takács, Gábor (author)

One of the manifestations of relativistic invariance in non-equilibrium quantum field theory is the “horizon effect” a.k.a. light-cone spreading of correlations: starting from an initially short-range correlated state, measurements of two observers at distant space-time points are expected to remain independent until their past light-cones overlap. Surprisingly, we find that in the presence of topological excitations correlations can develop outside of horizon and indeed even between infinitely distant points. We demonstrate this effect for a wide class of global quantum quenches to the sine-Gordon model. We point out that besides the maximum velocity bound implied by relativistic invariance, clustering of initial correlations is required to establish the “horizon effect”. We show that quenches in the sine-Gordon model have an interesting property: despite the fact that the initial states have exponentially decaying correlations and cluster in terms of the bosonic fields, they violate the clustering condition for the soliton fields, which is argued to be related to the non-trivial field topology. The nonlinear dynamics governed by the solitons makes the clustering violation manifest also in correlations of the local bosonic fields after the quench.

• Language: English
• Keywords: quantum field theory
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FMF - Faculty of Mathematics and Physics
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2020
• Number of pages: 32 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 2020, art. no. 224
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-124027
• UDC: 530.22
• ISSN on article: 1029-8479
• DOI: 10.1007/JHEP07(2020)224
• COBISS.SI-ID: 42999555
• Publication date in RUL: 21.12.2020

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: The journal of high energy physics
• Shortened title: J. high energy phys.
• Publisher: SISSA
• ISSN: 1029-8479
• COBISS.SI-ID: 1314148

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: kvantna teorija polja