Quench Dynamics in Holographic First-Order Phase Transition

In this work, we study the real-time dynamics of heating a phase-separated state in the holographic model of first-order phase transition. Although the response to the positive quench demonstrates a distinct behavior from that to the negative one, they share three characteristic stages in common. In the first stage, each of the two separated phases is driven to a new higher energy state, with a group of energy peaks or valleys excited around the domain walls, depending on whether the quench is positive or negative. In the second stage, such excitations propagate towards the interior of the high energy phase, meet and pass each other with the amplitude decaying gradually. Finally in the third stage, the system settles down to a new phase-separated state through the long wave hydrodynamics. The effect of the quench strength on the final state of the system is also investigated, where the two critical values of the quench strength are found to distinguish three different classes of final states. For a small quench strength, the final state is still a phase-separated state but with higher energy. For a moderate quench strength, the final state can be a metastable state below the phase transition temperature. While for a large quench strength, the final state can be a thermodynamically preferred state at a higher temperature