Quench dynamics across the MI-SF quantum phase transition with cluster mean field theory

Abstract

In this work, we study the quench dynamics of quantum phases of ultracold neutral bosons trapped in optical lattices. We investigate the validity of the Kibble-Zurek (KZ) scaling laws with the single-site Gutzwiller mean-field (SGMF) and cluster Gutzwiller mean-field (CGMF) theory. With CGMF, we note the evolution of the dynamical wavefunction in the ``impulse" regime of the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. We obtain the power law scalings for the crossover time and defect density with the quench rate predicted by KZ scaling laws. The critical exponents obtained from dynamics are close to their equilibrium values. Furthermore, it is observed that the obtained dynamical critical exponent $z$ improves towards the equilibrium value with increasing cluster sizes in CGMF.