Out of equilibrium many-body systems: adiabaticity, statistics of observables and dynamical phase transitions

This thesis reports the results obtained during my PhD research in the field of out of equilibrium quantum many-body systems. Chapter 1 consists in a brief introduction of the field and the introduction of concept that are useful for the following chapters. In Chapter 2 the statistics of the work as a tool for characterizing the dynamics of many-body quantum systems is introduced its general features discussed. Then, such a statistics is computed for generic time-dependent protocols (both global and local) in the quantum Ising chain and in the Gaussian field theory, showing, in particular, that in its low-energy part there are features that are independent of the details of the specific chosen protocol. Chapter 3 is devoted to the study of the dynamical phase transition in the $O(N)$ quantum vector model in the $N \rightarrow \infty$ limit, whose critical properties in generic dimensions are characterized. Moreover, a strong connection between such a transition and the statistics of excitations produced in a double quench as a function of the waiting time is showed. The chapter ends by studying the fate of the dynamical transition and the its critical properties when a ramp of finite duration $\tau$ is applied to the system instead of a sudden quench. In particular, we will show that when $\tau \rightarrow \infty$ the critical point tends to the equilibrium critical point (at zero temperature) in a power-law fashion and that for every finite $\tau$ the critical properties are always the same (and different from the equilibrium critical properties). Finally in Chapter 4 we will discuss the emergence of a non adiabatic behavior in the dynamics of the order parameter for a low dimensional quantum system driven within a gapped phase by considering in detail the case of a quantum Ising chain subject to a linear variation in time of the transverse field, showing that, no matter how slowly the ramp is performed, such a change leads eventually to the disruption of the order.