Holographic duality is a powerful tool to investigate the far-from
equilibrium dynamics of superfluids and other phases of quantum matter. For
technical reasons it is usually assumed that, after a quench, the far-from
equilibrium fields are still spatially uniform. Here we relax this assumption
and study the time evolution of a holographic superconductor after a
temperature quench but allowing spatial variations of the order parameter. Even
though the initial state and the quench are spatially uniform we show the order
parameter develops spatial oscillations with an amplitude that increases with
time until it reaches a stationary value. The free energy of these
inhomogeneous solutions is lower than that of the homogeneous ones. Therefore
the former corresponds to the physical configuration that could be observed
experimentally.Comment: corrected typos, added references and new results for a different
quenc