Work distribution and edge singularities for generic time-dependent protocols in extended systems

We study the statistics of the work done by globally changing in time with a generic protocol the mass in a free bosonic field theory with relativistic dispersion and the transverse field in the one-dimensional Ising chain both globally and locally. In the latter case we make the system start from the critical point and we describe it in the scaling limit. We provide exact formulas in all these cases for the full statistics of the work and we show that the low-energy part of the distribution of the work displays an edge singularity whose exponent does not depend on the specifics of the protocol that is chosen and may only depend on the position of the initial and final values with respect to the critical point of the system. We also show that the condensation transition found in the bosonic system for sudden quenches is robust with respect to the choice of the protocol. © 2013 American Physical Society.