Universality of Bose-Einstein Condensation and Quenched Formation Dynamics

Abstract: The emergence of macroscopic coherence in a many-body quantum system is a ubiquitous phenomenon across different physical systems and scales. This Chapter reviews key concepts characterizing such systems (correlation functions, condensation, quasi-condensation) and applies them to the study of emerging non-equilibrium features in the dynamical path towards such a highly-coherent state: particular emphasis is placed on emerging universal features in the dynamics of conservative and open quantum systems, their equilibrium or non-equilibrium nature, and the extent that these can be observed in current experiments with quantum gases. Characteristic examples include symmetry-breaking in the Kibble-Zurek mechanism, coarsening and phase-ordering kinetics, and universal spatiotemporal scalings around non-thermal fixed points and in the context of the Kardar- Parisi-Zhang equation; the Chapter concludes with a brief review of the potential relevance of some of these concepts in modelling the large-scale distribution of dark matter in the universe.