Figure 1: Phase transition in an inhomogeneous system leading to kink formation.
From: Topological defect formation and spontaneous symmetry breaking in ion Coulomb crystals
(a) An ion chain buckles in the centre and the ‘zigzag’ region spreads at a finite velocity υF during a quench of the transverse confinement (illustrated by the green ellipses). (b) Examples of the configuration after a quench: normal ‘zigzag’ (centre) and kink and anti-kink (top and bottom). The system chooses the final configuration with a certain probability, depending on the speed at which the phase transition is crossed.
