No Arabic abstract
We systematically investigate scrambling (or delocalizing) processes of quantum information encoded in quantum many-body systems by using numerical exact diagonalization. As a measure of scrambling, we adopt the tripartite mutual information (TMI) that becomes negative when quantum information is delocalized. We clarify that scrambling is an independent property of integrability of Hamiltonians; TMI can be negative or positive for both integrable and non-integrable systems. This implies that scrambling is a separate concept from conventional quantum chaos characterized by non-integrability. Furthermore, we calculate TMI in disordered systems such as many-body localized (MBL) systems and the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. We find that scrambling occurs but is slow in a MBL phase, while disorder in the SYK model does not make scrambling slower but makes it smoother.
We show that the onset of quantum chaos at infinite temperature in two many-body 1D lattice models, the perturbed spin-1/2 XXZ and Anderson models, is characterized by universal behavior. Specifically, we show that the onset of quantum chaos is marked by maxima of the typical fidelity susceptibilities that scale with the square of the inverse average level spacing, saturating their upper bound, and that the strength of the integrability/localization breaking perturbation at these maxima decreases with increasing system size. We also show that the spectral function below the Thouless energy (in the quantum-chaotic regime) diverges when approaching those maxima. Our results suggest that, in the thermodynamic limit, arbitrarily small integrability/localization breaking perturbations result in quantum chaos in the many-body quantum systems studied here.
We provide a protocol to measure out-of-time-order correlation functions. These correlation functions are of theoretical interest for diagnosing the scrambling of quantum information in black holes and strongly interacting quantum systems generally. Measuring them requires an echo-type sequence in which the sign of a many-body Hamiltonian is reversed. We detail an implementation employing cold atoms and cavity quantum electrodynamics to realize the chaotic kicked top model, and we analyze effects of dissipation to verify its feasibility with current technology. Finally, we propose in broad strokes a number of other experimental platforms where similar out-of-time-order correlation functions can be measured.
Complexity of dynamics is at the core of quantum many-body chaos and exhibits a hierarchical feature: higher-order complexity implies more chaotic dynamics. Conventional ergodicity in thermalization processes is a manifestation of the lowest order complexity, which is represented by the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) stating that individual energy eigenstates are thermal. Here, we propose a higher-order generalization of the ETH, named the $ k $-ETH ($ k=1,2,dots $), to quantify higher-order complexity of quantum many-body dynamics at the level of individual energy eigenstates, where the lowest order ETH (1-ETH) is the conventional ETH. As a non-trivial contribution of the higher-order ETH, we show that the $ k $-ETH with $ kgeq 2 $ implies a universal behavior of the $ k $th Renyi entanglement entropy of individual energy eigenstates. In particular, the Page correction of the entanglement entropy originates from the higher-order ETH, while as is well known, the volume law can be accounted for by the 1-ETH. We numerically verify that the 2-ETH approximately holds for a nonintegrable system, but does not hold in the integrable case. To further investigate the information-theoretic feature behind the $ k $-ETH, we introduce a concept named a partial unitary $ k $-design (PU $ k $-design), which is an approximation of the Haar random unitary up to the $ k $th moment, where partial means that only a limited number of observables are accessible. The $ k $-ETH is a special case of a PU $ k $-design for the ensemble of Hamiltonian dynamics with random-time sampling. In addition, we discuss the relationship between the higher-order ETH and information scrambling quantified by out-of-time-ordered correlators. Our framework provides a unified view on thermalization, entanglement entropy, and unitary $ k $-designs, leading to deeper characterization of higher-order quantum complexity.
We present a semiclassical treatment of one-dimensional many-body quantum systems in equilibrium, where quantum corrections to the classical field approximation are systematically included by a renormalization of the classical field parameters. Our semiclassical approximation is reliable in the limit of weak interactions and high temperatures. As a specific example, we apply our method to the interacting Bose gas and study experimentally observable quantities, such as correlation functions of bosonic fields and the full counting statistics of the number of particles in an interval. Where possible, our method is checked against exact results derived from integrability, showing excellent agreement.
Quantum chaotic interacting $N$-particle systems are assumed to show fast and irreversible spreading of quantum information on short (Ehrenfest) time scales $sim!log N$. Here we show that, near criticality, certain many-body systems exhibit fast initial scrambling, followed subsequently by oscillatory behavior between reentrant localization and delocalization of information in Hilbert space. We consider both integrable and nonintegrable quantum critical bosonic systems with attractive contact interaction that exhibit locally unstable dynamics in the corresponding many-body phase space of the large-$N$ limit. Semiclassical quantization of the latter accounts for many-body correlations in excellent agreement with simulations. Most notably, it predicts an asymptotically constant local level spacing $hbar/tau$, again given by $tau! sim! log N$. This unique timescale governs the long-time behavior of out-of-time-order correlators that feature quasi-periodic recurrences indicating reversibility.