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arXiv:1908.03292 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Out-of-time-order correlations in the quasiperiodic Aubry-André model

Jonathon Riddell, Erik Schwartz Sørensen

Published Jan 27, 2020• 13 citations
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Abstract

We study out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) in a free fermionic model with a quasiperiodic potential. This model is equivalent to the Aubry-Andr\'e model and features a phase transition from an extended phase to a localized phase at a nonzero value of the strength of the quasiperiodic potential. We investigate five different time regimes of interest for out-of-time-ordered correlators: early, wave front, $x={v}_{B}t$, late time equilibration, and infinite time. For the early time regime we observe a power law for all potential strengths. For the precursor time regime preceding the wave front we confirm a recently proposed universal form and use it to extract the characteristic velocity of the wave front for the present model. A Gaussian waveform is observed to work well in the time regime surrounding $x={v}_{B}t$, the wave front arrival time. Our main result is for the late time equilibration regime where we derive a finite time equilibration bound for the OTOC, bounding the correlator's distance from its late time value. The bound impose strict limits on equilibration of the OTOC in the extended regime and is valid not only for the Aubry-Andr\'e model but for any quadratic model. Finally, momentum out-of-time-ordered correlators for the Aubry-Andr\'e model are studied where large values of the OTOC are observed at late times at the critical point.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.101.024202

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Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) have been proposed to characterize quantum chaos in generic systems. However, they can also show interesting behavior in integrable models, resembling the OTOC in chaotic systems in some aspects. Here we study the OTOC for different operators in the exactly-solvable one-dimensional quantum Ising spin chain. The OTOC for spin operators that are local in terms of the Jordan-Wigner fermions has a ``shell-like'' structure: After the wavefront passes, the OTOC approaches its original value in the long-time limit, showing no signature of scrambling; the approach is described by a ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ power law at long time $t$. On the other hand, the OTOC for spin operators that are nonlocal in the Jordan-Wigner fermions has a ``ball-like'' structure, with its value reaching zero in the long-time limit, looking like a signature of scrambling; the approach to zero, however, is described by a slow power law ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}1/4}$ for the Ising model at the critical coupling. These long-time power-law behaviors in the lattice model are not captured by conformal field theory calculations. The mixed OTOC with both local and nonlocal operators in the Jordan-Wigner fermions also has a ``ball-like'' structure, but the limiting values and the decay behavior appear to be nonuniversal. In all cases, we are not able to define a parametrically large window around the wavefront to extract the Lyapunov exponent.

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We study out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) in a free fermionic model with a quasiperiodic potential. This model is equivalent to the Aubry-Andr'e model and features a phase transition from an extended phase to a localized phase at a nonzero value of the strength of the quasiperiodic potential. We investigate five different time regimes of interest for out-of-time-ordered correlators: early, wave front, x=vBtx={v}_{B}tx=vB​t, late time equilibration, and infinite time. For the early time regime we observe a power law for all potential strengths. For the precursor time regime preceding the wave front we confirm a recently proposed universal form and use it to extract the characteristic velocity of the wave front for the present model. A Gaussian waveform is observed to work well in the time regime surrounding x=vBtx={v}_{B}tx=vB​t, the wave front arrival time. Our main result is for the late time equilibration regime where we derive a finite time equilibration bound for the OTOC, bounding the correlator's distance from its late time value. The bound impose strict limits on equilibration of the OTOC in the extended regime and is valid not only for the Aubry-Andr'e model but for any quadratic model. Finally, momentum out-of-time-ordered correlators for the Aubry-Andr'e model are studied where large values of the OTOC are observed at late times at the critical point.
We investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of entanglement entropy and out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC) of noninteracting fermions at half-filling starting from a product state to distinguish the delocalized, multifractal (in the limit of nearest neighbor hopping), localized and mixed phases hosted by the quasiperiodic Aubry-André-Harper (AAH) model in the presence of long-range hopping. For sufficiently long-range hopping strength a secondary logarithmic behavior in the entanglement entropy is found in the mixed phases whereas the primary behavior is a power-law the exponent of which is different in different phases. The saturation value of entanglement entropy in the delocalized, multifractal and mixed phases depends linearly on system size whereas in the localized phase (in the short-range regime) it is independent of system size. The early-time growth of OTOC shows very different power-law behaviors in the presence of nearest neighbor hopping and long-range hopping. The late time decay of OTOC leads to noticeably different power-law exponents in different phases. The spatial profile of OTOC and its system-size dependence also provide distinct features to distinguish phases. In the mixed phases the spatial profile of OTOC shows two different dependences on space for small and large distances respectively. Interestingly the spatial profile contains large fluctuations at the special locations related to the quasiperiodicity parameter in the presence of multifractal states.
We study out-of-time ordered correlations C(x,t)C(x,t)C(x,t) and entanglement growth in the random-field XX model with open boundary conditions using the exact Jordan-Wigner transformation to a fermionic Hamiltonian. For any nonzero strength of the random field, this model describes an Anderson insulator. Two scenarios are considered: a global quench with the initial state corresponding to a product state of the N\'eel form, and the behavior in a typical thermal state at $\ensuremath{\beta}=1$. As a result of the presence of disorder, the information spreading as described by the out-of-time correlations stops beyond a typical length scale ${\ensuremath{\xi}}_{\text{OTOC}}$. For $|x|<{\ensuremath{\xi}}_{\text{OTOC}}$, information spreading occurs at the maximal velocity vmax=J{v}_{\mathrm{max}}=Jvmax​=J and we confirm predictions for the early-time behavior of $C(x,t)\ensuremath{\sim}{t}^{2|x|}$. For the case of the quench starting from the N\'eel product state, we also study the growth of the bipartite entanglement, focusing on the late- and infinite-time behavior. The approach to a bounded entanglement is observed to be slow for the disorder strengths we study.
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) are useful tools for investigating foundational questions such as thermalization in closed quantum systems because they can potentially distinguish between integrable and nonintegrable dynamics. Here, we discuss the properties of wavefronts of OTOCs by focusing on the region around the main wavefront at x=vBtx={v}_{B}tx=vB​t, where vB{v}_{B}vB​ is the butterfly velocity. Using a Heisenberg spin model as an example, we find that the leading edge of a propagating Gaussian with the argument $\ensuremath{-}m(x){(x\ensuremath{-}{v}_{B}t)}^{2}+b(x)t$ gives an excellent fit to the region around x=vBtx={v}_{B}tx=vB​t for both the free and chaotic cases. However, the scaling in these two regimes is very different: in the free case the coefficients m(x)m(x)m(x) and b(x)b(x)b(x) have an inverse power law dependence on xxx, whereas in the chaotic case they decay exponentially. We conjecture that this result is universal by using catastrophe theory to show that, on the one hand, the wavefront in the free case has to take the form of an Airy function and its local expansion shows that the power law scaling seen in the numerics holds rigorously and, on the other hand, an exponential scaling of the OTOC wavefront must be a signature of nonintegrable dynamics. We find that the crossover between the two regimes is smooth and characterized by an S\mathsf{S}S-shaped curve giving the lifting of Airy nodes as a function of a chaos parameter. This shows that the Airy form is qualitatively stable against weak chaos and consistent with the concept of a quantum Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser theory.
We study quench dynamics in an interacting spin chain with a quasiperiodic on-site field, known as the interacting Aubry-Andr\'e model of many-body localization. Using the time-dependent variational principle, we assess the late-time behavior for chains up to L=50L=50L=50. We find that the choice of periodicity $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}$ of the quasiperiodic field influences the dynamics. For $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}=(\sqrt{5}\ensuremath{-}1)/2$ (the inverse golden ratio) and interaction $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}=1$, the model most frequently considered in the literature, we obtain the critical disorder ${W}_{c}=4.8\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5$ in units where the noninteracting transition is at W=2W=2W=2. At the same time, for periodicity $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Phi}}=\sqrt{2}/2$ we obtain a considerably higher critical value, ${W}_{c}=7.8\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5$. Finite-size effects on the critical disorder Wc{W}_{c}Wc​ are much weaker than in the purely random case. This supports the enhancement of Wc{W}_{c}Wc​ in the case of a purely random potential by rare ``ergodic spots,'' which do not occur in the quasiperiodic case. Further, the data suggest that the decay of the antiferromagnetic order in the delocalized phase is faster than a power law.
In this paper, we explore quantum criticality in the disordered Aubry-Andr\'e (AA) model. For the pure AA model, it is well known that it hosts a critical point separating an extended phase and a localized insulator phase by tuning the strength of the quasiperiodic potential. Here we unearth that the disorder strength $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$ contributes an independent relevant direction near the critical point of the AA model. Our scaling analyses show that the localization length $\ensuremath{\xi}$ scales with $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$ as $\ensuremath{\xi}\ensuremath{\propto}{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}^{\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}}$ with ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}$ a new critical exponent, which is estimated to be ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}}\ensuremath{\approx}0.46$. This value is remarkably different from the counterparts for both the pure AA model and the Anderson model. Moreover, rich critical phenomena are discovered in the critical region spanned by the quasiperiodic and the disordered potentials. In particular, in the extended phase side, we show that the scaling theory satisfies a hybrid scaling form as a result of the overlap between the critical regions of the AA model and the Anderson localization.
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) have been proposed to characterize quantum chaos in generic systems. However, they can also show interesting behavior in integrable models, resembling the OTOC in chaotic systems in some aspects. Here we study the OTOC for different operators in the exactly-solvable one-dimensional quantum Ising spin chain. The OTOC for spin operators that are local in terms of the Jordan-Wigner fermions has a ``shell-like'' structure: After the wavefront passes, the OTOC approaches its original value in the long-time limit, showing no signature of scrambling; the approach is described by a ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ power law at long time ttt. On the other hand, the OTOC for spin operators that are nonlocal in the Jordan-Wigner fermions has a ``ball-like'' structure, with its value reaching zero in the long-time limit, looking like a signature of scrambling; the approach to zero, however, is described by a slow power law ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}1/4}$ for the Ising model at the critical coupling. These long-time power-law behaviors in the lattice model are not captured by conformal field theory calculations. The mixed OTOC with both local and nonlocal operators in the Jordan-Wigner fermions also has a ``ball-like'' structure, but the limiting values and the decay behavior appear to be nonuniversal. In all cases, we are not able to define a parametrically large window around the wavefront to extract the Lyapunov exponent.