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arXiv:1706.08956 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Thermal out-of-time-order correlators, KMS relations, and spectral functions

Felix M. Haehl, R. Loganayagam, Prithvi Narayan, Amin A. Nizami, Mukund Rangamani

Published Dec 1, 2017• 45 citations
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Abstract

We describe general features of thermal correlation functions in quantum systems, with specific focus on the fluctuation-dissipation type relations implied by the KMS condition. These end up relating correlation functions with different time ordering and thus should naturally be viewed in the larger context of out-of-time-ordered (OTO) observables. In particular, eschewing the standard formulation of KMS relations where thermal periodicity is combined with time-reversal to stay within the purview of Schwinger-Keldysh functional integrals, we show that there is a natural way to phrase them directly in terms of OTO correlators. We use these observations to construct a natural causal basis for thermal n-point functions in terms of fully nested commutators. We provide several general results which can be inferred from cyclic orbits of permutations, and exemplify the abstract results using a quantum oscillator as an explicit example.

DOI
10.1007/jhep12(2017)154

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We describe general features of thermal correlation functions in quantum systems, with specific focus on the fluctuation-dissipation type relations implied by the KMS condition. These end up relating correlation functions with different time ordering and thus should naturally be viewed in the larger context of out-of-time-ordered (OTO) observables. In particular, eschewing the standard formulation of KMS relations where thermal periodicity is combined with time-reversal to stay within the purview of Schwinger-Keldysh functional integrals, we show that there is a natural way to phrase them directly in terms of OTO correlators. We use these observations to construct a natural causal basis for thermal n-point functions in terms of fully nested commutators. We provide several general results which can be inferred from cyclic orbits of permutations, and exemplify the abstract results using a quantum oscillator as an explicit example.
Abstract We study the spectral representation of finite temperature, out of time ordered (OTO) correlators on the multi-time-fold generalised Schwinger-Keldysh contour. We write the contour-ordered correlators as a sum over time-order permutations acting on a fundamental array of Wightman correlators. We decompose this Wightman array in a basis of column vectors, which provide a natural generalisation of the familiar retarded-advanced basis in the finite temperature Schwinger-Keldysh formalism. The coefficients of this decomposition take the form of generalised spectral functions, which are Fourier transforms of nested and double commutators. Our construction extends a variety of classical results on spectral functions in the SK formalism at finite temperature to the OTO case.
The space of n-point correlation functions, for all possible time-orderings of operators, can be computed by a non-trivial path integral contour, which depends on how many time-ordering violations are present in the correlator. These contours, which have come to be known as timefolds, or out-of-time-order (OTO) contours, are a natural generalization of the Schwinger-Keldysh contour (which computes singly out-of-time-ordered correlation functions). We provide a detailed discussion of such higher OTO functional integrals, explaining their general structure, and the myriad ways in which a particular correlation function may be encoded in such contours. Our discussion may be seen as a natural generalization of the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism to higher OTO correlation functions. We provide explicit illustration for low point correlators (n ≤ 4) to exemplify the general statements.
The space of n-point correlation functions, for all possible time-orderings of operators, can be computed by a non-trivial path integral contour, which depends on how many time-ordering violations are present in the correlator. These contours, which have come to be known as timefolds, or out-of-time-order (OTO) contours, are a natural generalization of the Schwinger-Keldysh contour (which computes singly out-of-time-ordered correlation functions). We provide a detailed discussion of such higher OTO functional integrals, explaining their general structure, and the myriad ways in which a particular correlation function may be encoded in such contours. Our discussion may be seen as a natural generalization of the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism to higher OTO correlation functions. We provide explicit illustration for low point correlators ( n\leq 4 n ≤ 4 ) to exemplify the general statements.
In recent years, there has been intense attention on the constraints posed by quantum mechanics on the dynamics of the correlation at low temperatures, triggered by the postulation and derivation of quantum bounds on the transport coefficients or on the chaos rate. However, the physical meaning and the mechanism enforcing such bounds is still an open question. Here, we discuss the quantum fluctuation-dissipation theorem (the KMS conditions) as the principle underlying bounds on correlation time scales. By restating the problem in a replicated space, we show that the quantum bound to chaos is a direct consequence of the KMS condition, as applied to a particular pair of two-time correlation and response functions. Encouraged by this, we describe how quantum fluctuation-dissipation relations act in general as a blurring of the time-dependence of correlations, which can imply bounds on their decay rates. Thinking in terms of fluctuation-dissipation opens a direct connection between bounds and other thermodynamic properties.
Thermalization of a system when interacting with a thermal bath is an interesting problem. If a system eventually reaches a thermal state in the long time limit, it's expected that its density matrix would resemble the mean-force Gibbs state. Moreover, the correlation function must satisfy the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) condition or equivalently the Fluctuation-Dissipation Relation (FDR). In this paper, we derive a formal expression for the non-Markovian two-point function within the context of the weak coupling limit. Using this expression, we explicitly compute the two-point function for specific models, demonstrating their adherence to the KMS. In addition, we have formulated a non-perturbative approach in the form of a self-consistent approximation that includes a partial resummation of perturbation theory. This approach can capture strong coupling phenomena while still relying on simple equations. Notably, we verify that the two-point function obtained through this method also satisfies the KMS condition.
Abstract We consider a quantum Brownian particle interacting with two harmonic baths, which is then perturbed by a cubic coupling linking the particle and the baths. This cubic coupling induces non-linear dissipation and noise terms in the influence functional/master equation of the particle. Its effect on the Out-of-Time-Ordered Correlators (OTOCs) of the particle cannot be captured by the conventional Feynman-Vernon formalism.We derive the generalised influence functional which correctly encodes the physics of OTO fluctuations, response, dissipation and decoherence. We examine an example where Markovian approximation is valid for the OTO dynamics. If the original cubic coupling has a definite time-reversal parity, the leading order OTO influence functional is completely determined by the couplings in the usual master equation via OTO generalisation of Onsager-Casimir relations. New OTO fluctuationdissipation relations connect the non-Gaussianity of the thermal noise to the thermal jitter in the damping constant of the Brownian particle.