Given a class of q-local Hamiltonians, is it possible to find a simple variational state whose energy is a finite fraction of the ground-state energy in the thermodynamic limit?Whereas product states often provide an affirmative answer in the case of bosonic (or qubit) models, we show that Gaussian states fail dramatically in the fermionic case, such as for the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models.This prompts us to propose a new class of wave functions for SYK models inspired by the variational coupled cluster algorithm.We introduce a static "(0+0)-dimensional" large-N field theory to study the energy, two-point correlators, and entanglement properties of these states.Most importantly, we demonstrate a finite disorder-averaged approximation ratio of r ≈ 0.62 between the variational and ground-state energy of the SYK model for q = 4.Moreover, the variational states provide an exact description of spontaneous symmetry breaking in a related two-flavor SYK model.
Given a class of q-local Hamiltonians, is it possible to find a simple variational state whose energy is a finite fraction of the ground-state energy in the thermodynamic limit?Whereas product states often provide an affirmative answer in the case of bosonic (or qubit) models, we show that Gaussian states fail dramatically in the fermionic case, such as for the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models.This prompts us to propose a new class of wave functions for SYK models inspired by the variational coupled cluster algorithm.We introduce a static "(0+0)-dimensional" large-N field theory to study the energy, two-point correlators, and entanglement properties of these states.Most importantly, we demonstrate a finite disorder-averaged approximation ratio of r ≈ 0.62 between the variational and ground-state energy of the SYK model for q = 4.Moreover, the variational states provide an exact description of spontaneous symmetry breaking in a related two-flavor SYK model.
The SYK model: fermions with a q-body, Gaussian-random, all-to-all interaction, is the first of a fascinating new class of solvable large N models. We generalize SYK to include f flavors of fermions, each occupying N a sites and appearing with a q a order in the interaction. Like SYK, this entire class of models generically has an infrared fixed point. We compute the infrared dimensions of the fermions, and the spectrum of singlet bilinear operators. We show that there is always a dimension-two operator in the spectrum, which implies that, like in SYK, there is breaking of conformal invariance and maximal chaos in the infrared four-point function of the generalized model. After a disorder average, the generalized model has a global O(N 1) × O(N 2) × … × O(N f ) symmetry: a subgroup of the O(N) symmetry of SYK; thereby giving a richer spectrum. We also elucidate aspects of the large q limit and the OPE, and solve q = 2 SYK at finite N.
We study a description of the large N limit of the Sachdev–Ye–Kitaev (SYK) model in terms of quantum mechanics without quenched disorder. Instead of random couplings, we introduce massive scalar fields coupled to fermions, and study a small mass limit of the theory. We show that, under a certain condition, the correlation functions of fermions reproduce those of the SYK model with a temperature dependent coupling constant in the large N limit. We also discuss a supersymmetric generalization of our quantum mechanical model. As a byproduct, we develop an efficient way of estimating the large N behavior of correlators in the SYK model.
A brief survey of some random quantum models with infinite-range couplings is presented, ranging from the quantum Ising model to the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model. The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model was the first to realize an extensive zero temperature entropy without requiring an exponentially large ground state degeneracy. This phenomenon is closely linked to the absence of a particle-like interpretation of its low energy spectrum--its spectral functions are not those of bosons or fermions but are instead "Planckian", meaning they are universal functions of energy/temperature. A remarkable consequence of these properties is that the SYK model provides an effective low energy theory of non-supersymmetric charged or rotating black holes in 3+1 dimensions, leading to new results on the density of many-body quantum states of such black holes. For applications to non-quasiparticle metallic states of quantum materials, an extension of the SYK model, known as the two-dimensional Yukawa-Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model, is required. The 2dYSYK model describes quantum phase transitions in metals with spatial inhomogeneity in the position of the quantum critical point. This extension has led to a universal theory of the strange metal state observed in numerous correlated electron compounds, including copper-oxide based high temperature superconductors.
We present an exact solution in the large-N limit of the Lévy Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (LSYK) model introduced in Ref. [1], wherein the couplings are drawn from a Lévy Stable distribution parameterized by a tail exponent μ∈[0,2]. Starting from the Hamiltonian and its associated partition function, we highlight the key differences from the standard Gaussian SYK model and derive the large-N Schwinger-Dyson equations via a bosonic oscillator representation of the action. These equations are solved both numerically and analytically in the large-q and infrared limits. We subsequently analyze the chaotic properties of the model by computing the Krylov exponent from the large-q Green's function and extracting the Lyapunov exponent from the 4-point function. The parameter μ continuously interpolates between a free theory at μ=0 and the conventional, maximally chaotic Gaussian SYK model at μ=2, with non-maximal chaos persisting throughout the intermediate regime 0<μ<2. Thermodynamic quantities, including the entropy, free energy, average energy, and specific heat capacity, are computed and compared with their Gaussian SYK counterparts. The interpretations of the thermodynamics are discussed with respect to the holographic dual and non-Fermi liquid theory. Finally, we discuss an alternative representation of the LSYK model based on a distinct decomposition of the Lévy Stable distribution, which establishes a non-trivial connection to Gaussian SYK, and provide supporting analytical and numerical results in the appendices.
We study a 1+1 (space-time)-dimensional extension of the 0+1-dimensional Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model for N Majorana fermions, with random all-to-all quartic interactions, averaged over disorder. At large interaction couplings and large N, the conformal symmetry of the effective action emerges, which is not broken spontaneously as in the original 0+1 SYK model. Two-point correlators are obtained from a coupling expansion of the Schwinger-Dyson equations. For N=4, the model can be mapped onto complex fermions and solved exactly via the bosonization technique, featuring two branches of excitations: a gapped ``pseudocharge'' mode and a gapless ``pseudospin'' mode. We give an approximate analytic form of the two-point correlators at large distances and zero temperature for N=4, which is adopted heuristically to evaluate an approximation to the large-N free energy in the zero temperature limit, numerically. The fact that this energy displays an absolute minimum at a finite value of the gap, though in a restricted range of parameters, suggests that a gapped branch of excitations is also present in our extension of the model at least in that range of parameters.
We discuss a supersymmetric generalization of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. These are quantum mechanical models involving N Majorana fermions. The supercharge is given by a polynomial expression in terms of the Majorana fermions with random coefficients. The Hamiltonian is the square of the supercharge. The N=1 model with a single supercharge has unbroken supersymmetry at large N, but nonperturbatively spontaneously broken supersymmetry in the exact theory. We analyze the model by looking at the large N equation, and also by performing numerical computations for small values of N. We also compute the large N spectrum of ``singlet'' operators, where we find a structure qualitatively similar to the ordinary SYK model. We also discuss an N=2 version. In this case, the model preserves supersymmetry in the exact theory and we can compute a suitably weighted Witten index to count the number of ground states, which agrees with the large N computation of the entropy. In both cases, we discuss the supersymmetric generalizations of the Schwarzian action which give the dominant effects at low energies.