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arXiv:1606.02454 · Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics

Creating and probing the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev model with ultracold gases: Towards experimental studies of quantum gravity

Ippei Danshita, Masanori Hanada, Masaki Tezuka

Published Jul 7, 2017• 158 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We suggest that the holographic principle, combined with recent technological advances in atomic, molecular, and optical physics, can lead to experimental studies of quantum gravity. As a specific example, we consider the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev (SYK) model, which consists of spin-polarized fermions with an all-to-all complex random two-body hopping and has been conjectured to be dual to a certain quantum-gravitational system. Achieving low-temperature states of the SYK model is interpreted as a realization of a stringy black hole, provided that the holographic duality is true. We introduce a variant of the SYK model, in which the random two-body hopping is real. This model is equivalent to the original SYK model in the large-|$N$| limit. We show that this model can be created in principle by confining ultracold fermionic atoms into optical lattices and coupling two atoms with molecular states via photo-association lasers. This development serves as an important first step towards an experimental realization of such systems dual to quantum black holes. We also show how to measure out-of-time-order correlation functions of the SYK model, which allow for identifying the maximally chaotic property of the black hole.

DOI
10.1093/ptep/ptx108

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•Jan 1, 2018•0 citations
We suggest that the holographic principle, combined with recent technological advances in atomic, molecular, and optical physics, can lead to experimental studies of quantum gravity. As a specific example, we consider the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev (SYK) model, which consists of spin-polarized fermions with an all-to-all complex random two-body hopping and has been conjectured to be dual to a certain quantum-gravitational system. Achieving low-temperature states of the SYK model is interpreted as a realization of a stringy black hole, provided that the holographic duality is true. We introduce a variant of the SYK model, in which the random two-body hopping is real. This model is equivalent to the original SYK model in the large-|NNN| limit. We show that this model can be created in principle by confining ultracold fermionic atoms into optical lattices and coupling two atoms with molecular states via photo-association lasers. This development serves as an important first step towards an experimental realization of such systems dual to quantum black holes. We also show how to measure out-of-time-order correlation functions of the SYK model, which allow for identifying the maximally chaotic property of the black hole.
The realization of quantum field theories on an optical lattice is an important subject toward the quantum simulation. We argue that such efforts would lead to the experimental realizations of quantum black holes. The basic idea is to construct non-gravitational systems which are equivalent to the quantum gravitational systems via the holographic principle. Here the `equivalence' means that two theories cannot be distinguished even in principle. Therefore, if the holographic principle is true, one can create actual quantum black holes by engineering the non-gravitational systems on an optical lattice. In this presentation, we consider the simplest example: the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. We design an experimental scheme for creating the SYK model with use of ultra-cold fermionic atoms such as Lithium-6.
We propose a low energy model for simulating an analog black hole on an optical lattice using ultracold atoms. Assuming the validity of the holographic principle, we employ the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, which describes a system of randomly infinite range interacting fermions, also conjectured to be an exactly solvable UV-complete model for an extremal black hole in a higher dimensional Anti-de Sitter (AdS) dilaton gravity. At low energies, the SYK model exhibits an emergent conformal symmetry and is dual to the extremal black hole solution in near AdS2 spacetime. Furthermore, we show how the SYK maximally chaotic behaviour at large N limit, found to be dual to a gauge theory in higher dimensions, can also be employed as a non-trivial investigation tool for the holographic principle. The proposed setup is a theoretical platform to realize the SYK model with relevant exotic effects and behaviour at low energies as a highly non-trivial example of the AdS/CFT duality and a framework for studying black holes.
The tractability of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model at the large NNN limit makes it ideal to theoretically study its chaotic non-Fermi liquid behavior and holographic duality properties. We show that the complex SYK Hamiltonian emerges from a system of spinless itinerant fermionic atoms in an optical kagome lattice with a strong disorder. We discuss the regimes supporting flat band spectra in a kagome lattice, where the system can be nondispersive. Random interaction between nondispersive fermions is induced due to randomly distributed immobile impurities in the optical lattice, that impede the presence of itinerant fermions at their locations. We show that the proposed setup represents a maximally chaotic system and is a reliable experimental platform to realize the SYK model and study its exotic behavior. We show that the velocity distribution of the released fermions is a sensitive probe of the many-body Wigner-Dyson spectral density of states while the averaged many-body Loschmidt echo scheme can measure two-point out-of-time-ordered correlation functions of the SYK system.
Holographic quantum matter exhibits an intriguing connection between quantum black holes and more conventional (albeit strongly interacting) quantum many-body systems. This connection is manifested in the study of their thermodynamics,statistical mechanics and many-body quantum chaos. After explaining some of those connections and their significance, we focus on the most promising example to date of holographic quantum matter, the family of Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models. Those are simple quantum mechanical models that are thought to realize, holographically, quantum black holes. We review and assess various proposals for experimental realizations of the SYK models. Such experimental realization offers the exciting prospect of accessing black hole physics, and thus addressing many mysterious questions in quantum gravity, in tabletop experiments.
The search for a quantum theory of gravity has led to the discovery of quantum many-body systems that are dual to gravitational models with quantum properties. The perhaps most famous of these systems is the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. It features maximal scrambling of quantum information, and opens a potential inroad to experimentally investigating aspects of quantum gravity. A scalable laboratory realisation of this model, however, remains outstanding. Here, we propose a feasible implementation of the SYK model in cavity quantum electrodynamics platforms. Through detailed analytical and numerical demonstrations, we show how driving a cloud of fermionic atoms trapped in a multi-mode optical cavity, and subjecting it to a spatially disordered AC-Stark shift retrieves the physics of the SYK model, with random all-to-all interactions and fast scrambling. Our work provides a blueprint for realising the SYK model in a scalable system, with the prospect of studying holographic quantum matter in the laboratory.
The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model is a quantum mechanical many body system with random all-to-all interactions on fermionic N sites (N>>1). This model is shown to saturate the known maximal chaos bound of many body system and then based on this observation it is conjectured to be dual to a quantum black hole in the sense of the AdS/CFT correspondence. In this dissertation, we show that the large N physics of the SYK model is systematically described by a single bi-local field. In particular, we emphasize the appearance of the emergent conformal reparametrization symmetry at the critical IR fixed point and the corresponding divergent contribution of the symmetry modes in the propagator of the bi-local field. We discuss non-linear-level derivation of the zero modes effective action, which is given by the Schwarzian derivative for finite reparametrization symmetry. Besides the symmetry modes, which correspond to the dilaton-gravity sector in the dual AdS theory, the SYK model also predicts an infinite tower of matter fields in AdS_2. We demonstrate that this infinite spectrum can be nicely packaged into a single field in 3-dimensional space-time. Finally, we consider the question of identifying the dual space-time of the SYK model. Focusing on the signature of emergent space-time of the (Euclidean) model, we explain the need for non-local (Radon-type) transformations on external legs of n-point Green's functions. This results in a dual theory with Euclidean AdS signature with additional leg-factors. We speculate that these factors incorporate the coupling of additional bulk states similar to the discrete states of 2D string theory.