Landau-Zener Transitions in Chains

We determine transition probabilities in two exactly solvable multistate Landau-Zener (LZ) models and discuss applications of our results to the theory of dynamic passage through a phase transition in the dissipationless quantum mechanical regime. In particular, we show that statistics of particles in a new phase demonstrate scaling behavior. Our results also reveal a symmetry that we claim is a property of a large class of multistate LZ models, whose explicit solutions are not presently known. We support our arguments by direct numerical simulations.