We analyze a model quantum dynamical system subjected to periodic interaction with an environment, which can describe quantum measurements. Under the condition of strong classical chaos and strong decoherence due to large coupling with the measurement device, the spectra of the evolution operator exhibit an universal behavior. A generic spectrum consists of a single eigenvalue equal to unity, which corresponds to the invariant state of the system, while all other eigenvalues are contained in a disk in the complex plane. Its radius depends on the number of the Kraus measurement operators and determines the speed with which an arbitrary initial state converges to the unique invariant state. These spectral properties are characteristic of an ensemble of random quantum maps, which in turn can be described by an ensemble of real random Ginibre matrices. This will be proven in the limit of large dimension.
We analyze a model quantum dynamical system subjected to periodic interaction with an environment, which can describe quantum measurements. Under the condition of strong classical chaos and strong decoherence due to large coupling with the measurement device, the spectra of the evolution operator exhibit an universal behavior. A generic spectrum consists of a single eigenvalue equal to unity, which corresponds to the invariant state of the system, while all other eigenvalues are contained in a disk in the complex plane. Its radius depends on the number of the Kraus measurement operators and determines the speed with which an arbitrary initial state converges to the unique invariant state. These spectral properties are characteristic of an ensemble of random quantum maps, which in turn can be described by an ensemble of real random Ginibre matrices. This will be proven in the limit of large dimension.
We show that non-Hermitian Ginibre random matrix behaviors emerge in spatially extended many-body quantum chaotic systems in the space direction, just as Hermitian random matrix behaviors emerge in chaotic systems in the time direction. Starting with translational invariant models, which can be associated with dual transfer matrices with complex-valued spectra, we show that the linear ramp of the spectral form factor necessitates that the dual spectra have nontrivial correlations, which in fact fall under the universality class of the Ginibre ensemble, demonstrated by computing the level spacing distribution and the dissipative spectral form factor. As a result of this connection, the exact spectral form factor for the Ginibre ensemble can be used to universally describe the spectral form factor for translational invariant many-body quantum chaotic systems in the scaling limit where t and L are large, while the ratio between L and L_{Th}, the many-body Thouless length is fixed. With appropriate variations of Ginibre models, we analytically demonstrate that our claim generalizes to models without translational invariance as well. The emergence of the Ginibre ensemble is a genuine consequence of the strongly interacting and spatially extended nature of the quantum chaotic systems we consider, unlike the traditional emergence of Hermitian random matrix ensembles.
Recent studies of "deep thermalization" have revealed universal physics in quantum many-body dynamics beyond equilibration towards Gibbs states: maximally random quantum state ensembles can emerge on local subsystems, generated by measurements on their complement. In this work, we further identify a new form of universality exhibited in the "finer fingerprints" of quantum dynamics for local subsystems, induced by global unitary time-evolution. Specifically, we consider the projected Kraus ensemble, an ensemble of Kraus operators obtained by unraveling the quantum channel on a small subsystem with respect to knowledge of the classical configurations of its complement. Our central result is a one-parameter random matrix Ansatz that captures the ensemble's emergent statistical behavior along particular spacetime scalings, valid for generic 1D circuit dynamics without conservation laws: the ensemble is described by the product of a complex Ginibre random matrix and an independent log-normal random real scalar. The former encodes scrambling within the subsystem, captured by rotational invariance of the Ginibre measure, whereas the latter encodes fluctuations in the Born probabilities, arising from locality of the underlying dynamics. Our Ansatz can be established in the special cases of dynamics generated by global Haar random unitaries and dual-unitary circuits, while we motivate it for generic circuits using arguments of spacetime duality and the multiplicative ergodic theorem on long products of spatial transfer matrices. Extensive numerical simulations for random and Floquet circuit models verify these predictions. This universality in Kraus operators also provides a microscopic mechanism for deep thermalization in generic 1D quantum circuit dynamics, and has implications for local quantum information recoverability involving classical side information tied to knowledge of the bath.
Motivated by the surge of interest in statistics of non-Hermitian random matrices as a framework for description of universal characteristics of dissipative chaotic quantum many-body systems, we address the problem of characterizing the parametric correlations of spectral densities. Considering parameter-dependent ensemble of complex Ginibre matrices we derive an explicit, closed-form expression for the parametric number covariance in the systems of symmetry class A for eigenvalues in a circular domain containing on average a finite number of eigenvalues in the spectral bulk. This behavior is expected to be universal, as further supported by numerical evidence for the real Ginibre ensemble, non-Hermitian Bernoulli Wigner matrices and bi-unitarily invariant ensembles. We also discuss a relation between parametric correlations of spectral densities and the distribution of the so-called eigenvector non-orthogonality factor, which attracted considerable interest in recent years.
We investigate the appearance of quantum chaos in a single many-body wave function by analyzing the statistical properties of the eigenvalues of its reduced density matrix ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{A}$ of a spatial subsystem A. We find that (i): the spectrum of the density matrix is described by so-called Wishart random matrix theory, which (ii): exhibits besides level repulsion, spectral rigidity, and universal spectral correlations between eigenvalues separated by distances ranging from one up to many mean level spacings, which we investigate. We use these universal spectral characteristics of the reduced density matrix as a definition of chaos in the wave function. A simple and precise characterization of such universal correlations in a spectrum is a segment of strictly linear growth at sufficiently long times, recently called the ``ramp,'' of the spectral form factor which is the Fourier transform of the correlation function between a pair of eigenvalues. It turns out that Wishart and standard random matrix theory have the same universal ``ramp.'' Specifically, here numerical results for the spectral form factor of the density matrix of generic nonintegrable many-body systems, such as one-dimensional quantum Ising and Floquet spin models, are found to exhibit a universal ``ramp'' identical to that appearing for a ``random pure state'' (``Page state,'' or ``Haar state''). The density matrix of the latter is precisely the Wishart random matrix, the reduced density matrix of a completely random wave function. In addition, we study the development of chaos in the wave function by letting an initial direct product state evolve under the unitary time evolution. We find that the universal spectral correlations as manifested by the ``ramp'' set in as soon as the entanglement entropy begins to grow, and first develop for the eigenvalues at the top of the spectrum of the density matrix ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{A}$, subsequently spreading over the entire spectrum at later times. Finally, we study a prethermalized regime described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble, which develops in a rapidly driven Floquet model at intermediate times. We find that the prethermalized regime exhibits no chaos, as evidenced by the absence of a ``ramp'' in the spectral form factor of the density matrix, while the universal spectral correlations start to develop when the prethermalized regime finally relaxes at late times to the fully thermalized (infinite temperature) chaotic regime.
We study the quantum dynamics generated by the repeated action of a non-unitary evolution operator on a system of qubits. Breaking unitarity can lead to the purification of mixed initial states, which corresponds to the loss of sensitivity to initial conditions, and hence the absence of a key signature of dynamical chaos. However, the scrambling of quantum information can delay purification to times that are exponential in system size. Here we study purification in systems whose evolution operators are fixed in time, where all aspects of the dynamics are in principle encoded in spectral properties of the evolution operator for a single time step. The operators that we study consist of global Haar random unitary operators and non-unitary single-qubit operations. We show that exponentially slow purification arises from a distribution of eigenvalues in the complex plane that forms a ring with sharp edges at large radii, with the eigenvalue density exponentially large near these edges. We argue that the sharp edges of the eigenvalue distribution arise from level attraction along the radial direction in the complex plane. By calculating the spectral form factor we also show that there is level repulsion around the azimuthal direction, even close to the outer edge of the ring of eigenvalues. Our results connect this spectral signature of quantum chaos to the sensitivity of the system to its initial conditions.
Random matrix theory (RMT) and semi-classical methods are both used to study the spectra of chaotic quantum systems. The former is usually applied to small distances within the spectrum residing on scales of the mean level spacing where the phenomenon of universality emerges. Through the quantum-classical correspondence provided by semi-classics this regime is, conversely, described by long time dynamical properties of the classical system. In the first half of this thesis we explore such a connection for the study of spectral properties of quantum graphs with dynamically broken time reversal invariance. In physical systems this invariance is often not fully broken and to emulate this we include a rank-1 perturbation on the quantum level resulting in a RMT model outside of the usual universality classes. As we further show, the outcome can depend on graph specific properties and the rank of the perturbation. For the second half of the thesis we consider an opposite limit: instead of long times we study short times, on which universality can not be expected, in a chain-like spin system. In these systems the number of spins takes on a similar role as time, therefore the short time behavior in long chains has remarkable similarities to long time dynamics in few-body system. For instance, the formulation of an evolution operator in spatial direction is possible. Exploring this spatial-time duality we address long range spectral statistic in many-body systems and, for the first time, resolve periodic orbits in a genuine many-body system from the traces of its quantum evolution.