  The crossing of a continuous phase transition gives rise to the formation of
topological defects described by the Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM) in the limit
of slow quenches. The KZM predicts a universal power-law scaling of the defect
density as a function of the quench time. We focus on the deviations from KZM
experimentally observed in rapid quenches and establish their universality.
While KZM scaling holds below a critical quench rate, for faster quenches the
defect density and the freeze-out time become independent of the quench rate
and exhibit a universal power-law scaling with the final value of the control
parameter. These predictions are verified in several paradigmatic scenarios in
both the classical and quantum domains.
