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arXiv:2304.03236 · SciPost Physics

Nonlinear response in diffusive systems

Luca V. Delacrétaz, Ruchira Mishra

Published Feb 12, 2024• 16 citations
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Abstract

Nonintegrable systems thermalize, leading to the emergence of fluctuating hydrodynamics. Typically, this hydrodynamics is diffusive. We use the effective field theory (EFT) of diffusion to compute higher-point functions of conserved densities. We uncover a simple scaling behavior of correlators at late times, and, focusing on three and four-point functions, derive the asymptotically exact universal scaling functions that characterize nonlinear response in diffusive systems. This allows for precision tests of thermalization beyond linear response in quantum and classical many-body systems. We confirm our predictions in a classical lattice gas.

DOI
10.21468/scipostphys.16.2.047

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Nonintegrable systems thermalize, leading to the emergence of fluctuating hydrodynamics. Typically, this hydrodynamics is diffusive. We use the effective field theory (EFT) of diffusion to compute higher-point functions of conserved densities. We uncover a simple scaling behavior of correlators at late times, and, focusing on three and four-point functions, derive the asymptotically exact universal scaling functions that characterize nonlinear response in diffusive systems. This allows for precision tests of thermalization beyond linear response in quantum and classical many-body systems. We confirm our predictions in a classical lattice gas.
The recently developed effective field theory of fluctuations around thermal equilibrium is used to compute late-time correlation functions of conserved densities. Specializing to systems with a single conservation law, we find that the diffusive pole is shifted in the presence of nonlinear hydrodynamic self-interactions, and that the density-density Green's function acquires a branch point halfway to the diffusive pole, at frequency ω=-(i/2)Dk^{2}. We discuss the relevance of diffusive fluctuations for strongly correlated transport in condensed matter and cold atomic systems.
The thermalizing dynamics of many-body systems is often described through the lens of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). ETH postulates that the statistical properties of observables, when expressed in the energy eigenbasis, are described by smooth functions, which also describe correlations among the matrix elements. However, the form of these functions is usually left undetermined, constituting a key missing component of the ETH framework. In this Letter, we investigate the structure of such smooth functions by focusing on their Fourier transform, recently identified as free cumulants. Using nonlinear hydrodynamics, we provide a prediction for the universal scaling of the late-time behavior of time-ordered free cumulants in the thermodynamic limit. The prediction is further corroborated by large-scale numerical simulations of several nonintegrable one-dimensional spin models that exhibit diffusive transport behavior. Good agreement is observed in both infinite and finite-temperature regimes and for a collection of local observables. Our results indicate that the smooth multipoint correlation functions within the ETH framework admit a universal hydrodynamic description at low frequencies.
In the hydrodynamic theory, the nonequilibrium dynamics of a many-body system is approximated, at large scales of space and time, by irreversible relaxation to local entropy maximization. This results in a convective equation corrected by viscous or diffusive terms in a gradient expansion, such as the Navier-Stokes equations. Diffusive terms are evaluated using the Kubo formula, and possibly arising from an emergent noise due to discarded microscopic degrees of freedom. In one dimension of space, diffusive scaling is often broken as noise leads to superdiffusion. But in linearly degenerate hydrodynamics, such as that of integrable models, diffusive behaviors are observed, and it has long been thought that the standard diffusive picture remains valid. In this Letter, we show that in such systems, the Navier-Stokes equation breaks down beyond linear response. We demonstrate that diffusive-order corrections do not take the form of a gradient expansion. Instead, they are completely determined by ballistic transport of initial-state fluctuations, and obtained from the nonlocal two-point correlations recently predicted by the ballistic macroscopic fluctuation theory; the resulting hydrodynamic equations are reversible. To do so, we establish a regularized fluctuation theory, putting on a firm basis the recent idea that ballistic transport of initial-state fluctuations determines fluctuations and correlations beyond the Euler scale. This extends the idea of "diffusion from convection" previously developed to explain the Kubo formula in integrable systems to generic nonequilibrium settings.
A universal characterization of non-equilibrium steady states in interacting quantum many-body systems remains one of the central challenges of statistical physics. Here, we address this problem for a paradigmatic model of diffusive interacting quantum matter---the boundary-driven XXZ spin chain with bulk dephasing---and derive, directly from its microscopic Lindblad dynamics, an emergent classical Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory (MFT) governing its large-scale fluctuations. Crucially, the resulting hydrodynamics carries a density-dependent diffusivity and mobility as the fingerprint of interactions. This effective description enables the exact computation of the stationary density profile, long-range correlations, and the full counting statistics of the current, in excellent agreement with tensor-network simulations. Our work demonstrates that noisy quantum many-body systems can realize the universality class of genuinely interacting diffusive matter, beyond the constant-diffusivity class of the symmetric simple exclusion process, and establishes MFT as a powerful universal framework for interacting diffusive quantum systems.
Fluctuating hydrodynamics emerges in essentially any local many-body system at nonzero temperature. Effective field theory (EFT) approaches enable the quantitative study of this emergence, providing a controlled framework to capture late-time observables. These lectures introduce the organizing principles behind equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium dynamics in these thermalizing systems. A central focus is the modern construction of these EFTs, which frames fluctuating hydrodynamics through the lens of "strong-to-weak" spontaneous symmetry breaking. Drawing examples from both high-energy and condensed matter physics, we show how this paradigm adapts to systems ranging from spin chains to relativistic quantum field theories, including models with generalized symmetries or symmetries with 't Hooft anomalies. Finally, we discuss UV/IR constraints on transport parameters -- viewed as the Wilson coefficients of hydrodynamic EFTs -- both in continuum and on the lattice.
We construct an effective field theory (EFT) that captures the universal behavior of out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) at late times in generic quantum many-body systems with conservation laws. The EFT hinges on a generalization of the strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking pattern adapted to out-of-time-order observables, and reduces to conventional fluctuating hydrodynamics when time-ordered observables are probed. We use the EFT to explain different power-law behavior observed in OTOCs at late times, and show that many OTOCs are entirely fixed by conventional transport data at leading order. Nevertheless, we show that a specific combination of OTOCs is sensitive to novel transport parameters, not visible in regular time-ordered correlators. We test our predictions in Hamiltonian and Floquet spin chains in one spatial dimension.