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arXiv:1701.07081 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Instability of the non-Fermi-liquid state of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model

Zhen Bi, Chao‐Ming Jian, Yi‐Zhuang You, Kelly Ann Pawlak, Cenke Xu

Published May 4, 2017• 110 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study a series of perturbations on the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. We show that the maximal chaotic non-Fermi-liquid phase described by the ordinary $q=4$ SYK model has marginally relevant or irrelevant (depending on the sign of the coupling constants) four-fermion perturbations allowed by symmetry. Changing the sign of one of these four-fermion perturbations leads to a continuous chaotic-nonchaotic quantum phase transition of the system accompanied by a spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking. Starting with the ${\mathrm{SYK}}_{q}$ model with a $q$-fermion interaction, similar perturbations can lead to a series of new fixed points with continuously varying exponents.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.95.205105

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We study a series of perturbations on the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. We show that the maximal chaotic non-Fermi-liquid phase described by the ordinary q=4q=4q=4 SYK model has marginally relevant or irrelevant (depending on the sign of the coupling constants) four-fermion perturbations allowed by symmetry. Changing the sign of one of these four-fermion perturbations leads to a continuous chaotic-nonchaotic quantum phase transition of the system accompanied by a spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking. Starting with the SYKq{\mathrm{SYK}}_{q}SYKq​ model with a qqq-fermion interaction, similar perturbations can lead to a series of new fixed points with continuously varying exponents.
Abstract The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model incorporates rich physics, ranging from exotic non-Fermi liquid states without quasiparticle excitations, to holographic duality and quantum chaos. However, its experimental realization remains a daunting challenge due to various unnatural ingredients of the SYK Hamiltonian such as its strong randomness and fully nonlocal fermion interaction. At present, constructing such a nonlocal Hamiltonian and exploring its dynamics is best through digital quantum simulation, where state-of-the-art techniques can already handle a moderate number of qubits. Here, we demonstrate a first step towards simulation of the SYK model on a nuclear-spin-chain simulator. We observed the fermion paring instability of the non-Fermi liquid state and the chaotic-nonchaotic transition at simulated temperatures, as was predicted by previous theories. As the realization of the SYK model in practice, our experiment opens a new avenue towards investigating the key features of non-Fermi liquid states, as well as the quantum chaotic systems and the AdS/CFT duality.
The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model is a concrete solvable model to study non-Fermi liquid properties, holographic duality, and maximally chaotic behavior. In this work, we consider a generalization of the SYK model that contains two SYK models with a different number of Majorana modes coupled by quadratic terms. This model is also solvable, and the solution shows a zero-temperature quantum phase transition between two non-Fermi liquid chaotic phases. This phase transition is driven by tuning the ratio of two mode numbers, and a nonchaotic Fermi liquid sits at the critical point with an equal number of modes. At a finite temperature, the Fermi liquid phase expands to a finite regime. More intriguingly, a different non-Fermi liquid phase emerges at a finite temperature. We characterize the phase diagram in terms of the spectral function, the Lyapunov exponent, and the entropy. Our results illustrate a concrete example of the quantum phase transition and critical behavior between two non-Fermi liquid phases.
Quantum chaos is one of the distinctive features of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, N Majorana fermions in 0+1 dimensions with infinite-range two-body interactions, which is attracting a lot of interest as a toy model for holography. Here we show analytically and numerically that a generalized SYK model with an additional one-body infinite-range random interaction, which is a relevant perturbation in the infrared, is still quantum chaotic and retains most of its holographic features for a fixed value of the perturbation and sufficiently high temperature. However, a chaotic-integrable transition, characterized by the vanishing of the Lyapunov exponent and spectral correlations given by Poisson statistics, occurs at a temperature that depends on the strength of the perturbation. We speculate about the gravity dual of this transition.
We construct a sign-problem-free variant of the complex Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model which keeps all the essential properties of the SYK model, including the analytic solvability in the large-NNN limit and being maximally chaotic. In addition to the number of complex fermions NNN, our model has an additional parameter MMM controlling the number of terms in the Hamiltonian which we take $M\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ with keeping M/NM/NM/N constant in the large-NNN limit. While our model respects global U(1)\text{U}(1)U(1) symmetry associated with the fermion number conservation, both the large-NNN limit and the sign-problem-free nature become explicit in the Majorana representation. We present a detailed analysis on our model, i.e., the random matrix classification based on the symmetry analysis, analytic approach, and the quantum Monte Carlo simulations. All these analyses show that our model exhibits a non-Fermi-liquid physics, a gapless fermionic system lying beyond the conventional Fermi-liquid picture.
We propose a simple solvable variant of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model which displays a quantum phase transition from a fast-scrambling non-Fermi liquid to disordered Fermi liquid. Like the canonical SYK model, our variant involves a single species of Majorana fermions connected by all-to-all random four-fermion interactions. The phase transition is driven by a random two-fermion term added to the Hamiltonian whose structure is inspired by proposed solid-state realizations of the SYK model. Analytic expressions for the saddle-point solutions at a large number NNN of fermions are obtained and show a characteristic scale-invariant ${\ensuremath{\sim}|\ensuremath{\omega}|}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$ behavior of the spectral function below the transition which is replaced by a ${\ensuremath{\sim}|\ensuremath{\omega}|}^{\ensuremath{-}1/3}$ singularity exactly at the critical point. These results are confirmed by numerical solutions of the saddle-point equations and discussed in the broader context of the field.
We propose an extension of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model that exhibits a quantum phase transition from the previously identified non-Fermi-liquid fixed point to a Fermi-liquid-like state, while still allowing an exact solution in a suitable large-NNN limit. The extended model involves coupling the interacting NNN-site SYK model to a new set of pNpNpN peripheral sites with only quadratic hopping terms between them. The conformal fixed point of the SYK model remains a stable low-energy phase below a critical ratio of peripheral sites p<pc(n)p<{p}_{c}(n)p<pc​(n) that depends on the fermion filling nnn. The scrambling dynamics throughout the non-Fermi-liquid (NFL) phase is characterized by a universal Lyapunov exponent ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathrm{L}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}2\ensuremath{\pi}T$ in the low-temperature limit; however, the temperature scale marking the crossover to the conformal regime vanishes continuously at the critical point pc{p}_{c}pc​. The residual entropy at $T\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$, nonzero in the NFL, also vanishes continuously at the critical point. For p>pcp>{p}_{c}p>pc​ the quadratic sites effectively screen the SYK dynamics, leading to a quadratic fixed point in the low-temperature and low-frequency limit. The interactions have a perturbative effect in this regime leading to scrambling with Lyapunov exponent ${\ensuremath{\lambda}}_{\mathrm{L}}\ensuremath{\propto}{T}^{2}$.