We argue that two distinct probes of quantum chaos, i.e., the growth of noncommutativity of two unequal-time operators and the degree of irreversibility in a time-reversal test, are equivalent for initially localized states. We confirm this for interacting nonintegrable many-body systems and a quantum kicked rotor. Our results show that three-point out-of-time-ordered correlators dominate the growth of the squared commutator for initially localized states, in stark contrast to four-point out-of-time-ordered correlators that have extensively been studied for thermal initial states.
We argue that two distinct probes of quantum chaos, i.e., the growth of noncommutativity of two unequal-time operators and the degree of irreversibility in a time-reversal test, are equivalent for initially localized states. We confirm this for interacting nonintegrable many-body systems and a quantum kicked rotor. Our results show that three-point out-of-time-ordered correlators dominate the growth of the squared commutator for initially localized states, in stark contrast to four-point out-of-time-ordered correlators that have extensively been studied for thermal initial states.
While classical chaos has been successfully characterized with consistent theories and intuitive techniques, such as with the use of Lyapunov exponents, quantum chaos is still poorly understood, as well as its relation with multi-partite entanglement and information scrambling. We consider a benchmark system, the kicked top model, which displays chaotic behaviour in the classical version, and proceed to characterize the quantum case with a thorough diagnosis of the growth of chaos and entanglement in time. As a novel tool for the characterization of quantum chaos, we introduce for this scope the quasi-probability distribution behind the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC). We calculate the cumulative nonclassicality of this distribution, which has already been shown to outperform the simple use of OTOC as a probe to distinguish between integrable and nonintegrable Hamiltonians. To provide a thorough comparative analysis, we contrast the behavior of the nonclassicality with entanglement measures, such as the tripartite mutual information of the Hamiltonian as well as the entanglement entropy. We find that systems whose initial states would lie in the "sea of chaos" in the classical kicked-top model, exhibit, as they evolve in time, characteristics associated with chaotic behavior and entanglement production in closed quantum systems. We corroborate this indication by capturing it with this novel OTOC-based measure.
We study two classes of quantum phenomena associated with classical chaos in a variety of quantum models: (i) dynamical localization and its extension and generalization to interacting few- and many-body systems and (ii) quantum exponential divergences in high-order correlators and other diagnostics of quantum chaos. Dynamical localization (DL) is a subtle phenomenon related to Anderson localization. It hinges on quantum interference and is typically destroyed in presence of interactions. DL often manifests as a failure of a driven system to heat up, violating the foundations of statistical physics. Kicked rotor (KR) is a prototypical chaotic classical model that exhibits linear energy growth with time. The quantum kicked rotor (QKR) features DL instead: its energy saturates. Multiple attempts of many-body generalizations faced difficulties in preserving DL. Recently, DL was shown in a special integrable many-body model. We study non-integrable models of few- and many-body QKR-like systems and provide direct evidence that DL can persist there. In addition, we show how a novel related concept of localization landscape can be applied to study transport in rippled channels. Out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) was proposed as an indicator of quantum chaos, since in the semiclassical limit, this correlator's possible exponential growth rate (CGR) resembles the classical Lyapunov exponent (LE). We show that the CGR in QKR is related, but distinct from the LE in KR. We also show a singularity in the OTOC at the Ehrenfest time tᴱ due to a delay in the onset of quantum interference. Next, we study scaling of OTOC beyond tᴱ. We then explore how the OTOC-based approach to quantum chaos relates to the random-matrix-theoretical description by introducing an operator we dub the Lyapunovian. Its level statistics is calculated for quantum stadium billiard, a seminal model of quantum chaos, and aligns perfectly with the Wigner-Dyson surmise. In the semiclassical limit, the Lyapunovian reduces to the matrix of uncorrelated finite-time Lyapunov exponents, connecting the CGR at early times, when the quantum effects are weak, to universal level repulsion that hinges on strong quantum interference. Finally, we consider quantum polygonal billiards: their classical counterparts are non-chaotic. We show exponential growth of the OTOCs in these systems, sharply contrasted with the classical behavior even before quantum interference develops.
We show that out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) constitute a probe for local-operator entanglement (LOE). There is strong evidence that a volumetric growth of LOE is a faithful dynamical indicator of quantum chaos, while OTOC decay corresponds to operator scrambling, often conflated with chaos. We show that rapid OTOC decay is a necessary but not sufficient condition for linear (chaotic) growth of the LOE entropy. We analytically support our results through wide classes of local-circuit models of many-body dynamics, including both integrable and nonintegrable dual-unitary circuits. We show sufficient conditions under which local dynamics leads to an equivalence of scrambling and chaos.
Out-of-time-ordered correlation functions (OTOCs) are presently being extensively debated as quantifiers of dynamical chaos in interacting quantum many-body systems. We argue that in quantum spin and fermionic systems, where all local operators are bounded, an OTOC of local observables is bounded as well and thus its exponential growth is merely transient. As a better measure of quantum chaos in such systems, we propose, and study, the density of the OTOC of extensive sums of local observables, which can exhibit indefinite growth in the thermodynamic limit. We demonstrate this for the kicked quantum Ising model by using large-scale numerical results and an analytic solution in the integrable regime. In a generic case, we observe the growth of the OTOC density to be linear in time. We prove that this density in general, locally interacting, nonintegrable quantum spin and fermionic dynamical systems exhibits growth that is at most polynomial in time---a phenomenon, which we term weak quantum chaos. In the special case of the model being integrable and the observables under consideration quadratic, the OTOC density saturates to a plateau.
Abstract We study the distance of two wave functions under chaotic time evolution. The two initial states differ only by a local perturbation. To be entitled ‘chaos’ the distance should have a rapid growth afterwards. Instead of focusing on the entire wave function, we measure the distance d 2 ( t ) by investigating the difference of two reduced density matrices of the subsystem A that is spatially separated from the local perturbation. This distance d 2 ( t ) grows with time and eventually saturates to a small constant. We interpret the distance growth in terms of operator scrambling picture, which relates d 2 ( t ) to the square of commutator (out-of-time-order correlator) and shows that both these quantities measure the area of the operator wave front in subsystem A . Among various one-dimensional spin- models, we numerically show that the models with non-local power-law interaction can have an exponentially growing regime in d 2 ( t ) when the local perturbation and subsystem A are well separated. This so-called Lyapunov regime is absent in the spin- chain with local interaction only. After sufficiently long time evolution, d 2 ( t ) relaxes to a small constant, which decays exponentially as we increase the system size and is consistent with eigenstate thermalization hypothesis. Based on these results, we demonstrate that d 2 ( t ) is a useful quantity to characterize both quantum chaos and quantum thermalization in many-body wave functions.
Out-of-time order correlators (OTOCs) are crucial tools for studying quantum chaos as they show distinct scrambling behavior for chaotic Hamiltonians. We calculate the OTOC and analyze the quantum information scrambling in atom-field and spin-spin interaction models, which are open-system models and exhibit non-Markovian behavior. We also examine the Loschmidt echo for these models and comment on their chaotic nature. The commutator growth of two local operators, which is upper bounded by the Lieb-Robinson bound, is studied for these models, and the patterns of scrambling are investigated.