The short time (large energy) behavior of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model (SYK) is one of the main reasons for the growing interest garnered by this model. True chaotic behavior sets in at the Thouless time, which can be extracted from the energy spectrum. In order to do so, it is necessary to unfold the spectrum, i.e., to filter out global tendencies. Using a simple ensemble average for unfolding results in a parametically low estimation of the Thouless energy. By examining the behavior of the spectrum as the distribution of the matrix elements is changed into a log-normal distribution, it is shown that the sample-to-sample level spacing variance determines this estimation of the Thouless energy. Using the singular value decomposition method, which filters out these global sample-to-sample fluctuations, the Thouless energy becomes parametrically much larger, essentially of the order of the band width. It is shown that the SYK model is non-self-averaging even in the thermodynamic limit which must be taken into account in considering its short time properties.
Abstract The Sachdev‐Ye‐Kitaev model (SYK) is renowned for its short‐time chaotic behavior, which plays a fundamental role in its application to various fields such as quantum gravity and holography. The Thouless energy, representing the energy scale at which the universal chaotic behavior in the energy spectrum ceases, can be determined from the spectrum itself. When simulating the SYK model on classical or quantum computers, it is advantageous to minimize the number of terms in the Hamiltonian by randomly pruning the couplings. In this paper, it is demonstrated that even with a significant pruning, eliminating a large number of couplings, the chaotic behavior persists up to short time scales. This is true even when only a fraction of the original couplings in the fully connected SYK model, specifically , is retained. Here, represents the number of sites, and . The properties of the long‐range energy scales, corresponding to short time scales, are verified through numerical singular value decomposition (SVD) and level number variance calculations.
We study spectral and thermodynamic properties of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model, a variant of the
k-body embedded random ensembles studied for several decades in the context of nuclear physics and quantum chaos. We show analytically that the fourth- and sixth-order energy cumulants vanish in the limit of a large number of particles $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$, which is consistent with a Gaussian spectral density. However, for finite
N, the tail of the average spectral density is well approximated by a semicircle law. The specific heat coefficient, determined numerically from the low-temperature behavior of the partition function, is consistent with the value obtained by previous analytical calculations. For energy scales of the order of the mean level spacing we show that level statistics are well described by random matrix theory. Due to the underlying Clifford algebra of the model, the universality class of the spectral correlations depends on
N. For larger energy separations we identify an energy scale that grows with
N, reminiscent of the Thouless energy in mesoscopic physics, where deviations from random matrix theory are observed. Our results are a further confirmation that the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model is quantum chaotic for all time scales. According to recent claims in the literature, this is an expected feature in field theories with a gravity dual.
We investigate the supersymmetric Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model,
N Majorana fermions with infinite range interactions in
0+1 dimensions. We have found that, close to the ground state $E\ensuremath{\approx}0$, discrete symmetries alter qualitatively the spectral properties with respect to the non-supersymmetric SYK model. The average spectral density at finite
N, which we compute analytically and numerically, grows exponentially with
N for $E\ensuremath{\approx}0$. However the chiral condensate, which is normalized with respect the total number of eigenvalues, vanishes in the thermodynamic limit. Slightly above $E\ensuremath{\approx}0$, the spectral density grows exponentially with the energy. Deep in the quantum regime, corresponding to the first
O(N) eigenvalues, the average spectral density is universal and well described by random matrix ensembles with chiral and superconducting discrete symmetries. The dynamics for $E\ensuremath{\approx}0$ is investigated by level fluctuations. Also in this case we find excellent agreement with the prediction of chiral and superconducting random matrix ensembles for eigenvalue separations smaller than the Thouless energy, which seems to scale linearly with
N. Deviations beyond the Thouless energy, which describes how ergodicity is approached, are universally characterized by a quadratic growth of the number variance. In the time domain, we have found analytically that the spectral form factor
g(t), obtained from the connected two-level correlation function of the unfolded spectrum, decays as
1/t2 for times shorter but comparable to the Thouless time with
g(0) related to the coefficient of the quadratic growth of the number variance. Our results provide further support that quantum black holes are ergodic and therefore can be classified by random matrix theory.
The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model is a concrete model for a non-Fermi liquid with maximally chaotic behavior in
(0+1) dimensions. In order to gain some insights into real materials in higher dimensions where fermions could hop between different sites, here we consider coupling a SYK lattice by constant hopping. We call this the dispersive SYK model. Focusing on
(1+1)-dimensional homogeneous hopping, by either tuning the temperature or the relative strength of the random interaction (hopping) and constant hopping, we find a crossover between a dispersive metal to an incoherent metal, where the dynamic exponent
z changes from 1 to $\ensuremath{\infty}$. We study the crossover by calculating the spectral function, charge density correlator, and the Lyapunov exponent. We further find the Lyapunov exponent becomes larger when the chemical potential is tuned to approach a van Hove singularity because of the large density of states near the Fermi surface. The effect of the topological nontrivial bands is also discussed.
Disordered quantum systems feature an energy scale known as the Thouless energy. For energy ranges below this scale, the properties of the energy spectrum can be described by random matrix theory. Above this scale a different behavior sets in. For a metallic system it was shown long ago by Altshuler and Shklovskii [Sov. Phys. JETP 64, 127 (1986)] that the number variance should increase as a power law with power dependent on only the dimensionality of the system. Although tantalizing hints at this behavior were seen in previous numerical studies, it is quite difficult to verify this prediction using the standard local unfolding methods. Here we use a different unfolding method, i.e., singular value decomposition, and establish a connection between the power law behavior of the scree plot (the singular values ranked by their amplitude) and the power law behavior of the number variance. Thus, we are able to numerically verify Altshuler and Shklovskii's prediction for disordered three-, four-, and five-dimensional single-electron Anderson models on square lattices in the metallic regime. The same method could be applied to systems such as the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model and various interacting many-body models for which the many-body localization occurs. It was recently reported that such systems exhibit a Thouless energy, and analyzing the spectrum's behavior on larger scales is of much current interest.
Abstract We present a detailed quantitative analysis of spectral correlations in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. We find that the deviations from universal Random Matrix Theory (RMT) behavior are due to a small number of long-wavelength fluctuations (of the order of the number of Majorana fermions N) from one realization of the ensemble to the next one. These modes can be parameterized effectively in terms of Q-Hermite orthogonal polynomials, the main contribution being due to scale fluctuations for which we give a simple analytical estimate. Our numerical results for N = 32 show that only the lowest eight polynomials are needed to eliminate the nonuniversal part of the spectral fluctuations. The covariance matrix of the coefficients of this expansion can be obtained analytically from low-order double-trace moments. We evaluate the covariance matrix of the first six moments and find that it agrees with the numerics. We also analyze the spectral correlations in terms of a nonlinear σ-model, which is derived through a Fierz transformation, and evaluate the one and two-point spectral correlation functions to two-loop order. The wide correlator is given by the sum of the universal RMT result and corrections whose lowest-order term corresponds to scale fluctuations. However, the loop expansion of the σ-model results in an ill-behaved expansion of the resolvent, and it gives universal RMT fluctuations not only for q = 4 or higher even q-body interactions, but also for the q = 2 SYK model albeit with a much smaller Thouless energy while the correct result in this case should have been Poisson statistics. In our numerical studies we analyze the number variance and spectral form factor for N = 32 and q = 4. We show that the quadratic deviation of the number variance for large energies appears as a peak for small times in the spectral form factor. After eliminating the long-wavelength fluctuations, we find quantitative agreement with RMT up to an exponentially large number of level spacings for the number variance or exponentially short times in the case of the spectral form factor.