Recently, the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) has gained much attention as an indicator of quantum chaos. In the semi-classical limit, its exponential growth rate resembles the classical Lyapunov exponent. The quantum–classical correspondence has been supported for the one-body chaotic systems as well as realistic systems with interactions, as in the Dicke model, a model of multi-two-level atoms and cavity field interactions. To this end, we calculate the OTOC for different variations of the Dicke model in an open quantum system setting. The connection between the superradiant phase transition of the Dicke model and the OTOC is studied. Further, we establish a relation between the OTOC and the second-order coherence function. This becomes important for the experimental studies of the OTOC and quantum chaos in the models of quantum optics.
Recently, the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) has gained much attention as an indicator of quantum chaos. In the semi-classical limit, its exponential growth rate resembles the classical Lyapunov exponent. The quantum–classical correspondence has been supported for the one-body chaotic systems as well as realistic systems with interactions, as in the Dicke model, a model of multi-two-level atoms and cavity field interactions. To this end, we calculate the OTOC for different variations of the Dicke model in an open quantum system setting. The connection between the superradiant phase transition of the Dicke model and the OTOC is studied. Further, we establish a relation between the OTOC and the second-order coherence function. This becomes important for the experimental studies of the OTOC and quantum chaos in the models of quantum optics.
The exponential growth of the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) has been proposed as a quantum signature of classical chaos. The growth rate is expected to coincide with the classical Lyapunov exponent. This quantum-classical correspondence has been corroborated for the kicked rotor and the stadium billiard, which are one-body chaotic systems. The conjecture has not yet been validated for realistic systems with interactions. We make progress in this direction by studying the OTOC in the Dicke model, where two-level atoms cooperatively interact with a quantized radiation field. For parameters where the model is chaotic in the classical limit, the OTOC increases exponentially in time with a rate that closely follows the classical Lyapunov exponent.
Quantum chaos refers to signatures of classical chaos found in the quantum domain. Recently, it has become common to equate the exponential behavior of out-of-time order correlators (OTOCs) with quantum chaos. The quantum-classical correspondence between the OTOC exponential growth and chaos in the classical limit has indeed been corroborated theoretically for some systems and there are several projects to do the same experimentally. The Dicke model, in particular, which has a regular and a chaotic regime, is currently under intense investigation by experiments with trapped ions. We show, however, that for experimentally accessible parameters, OTOCs can grow exponentially also when the Dicke model is in the regular regime. The same holds for the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model, which is integrable and also experimentally realizable. The exponential behavior in these cases are due to unstable stationary points, not to chaos.
Quantum chaos refers to signatures of classical chaos found in the quantum domain. Recently, it has become common to equate the exponential behavior of the quantum evolution of out-of-time order correlators (OTOCs) with quantum chaos. The quantum-classical correspondence between the OTOC exponential growth and chaos in the classical limit has indeed been corroborated for different chaotic systems. In this work, however, we show that OTOCs can grow exponentially also in regular models. This happens when the classical system exhibits isolated unstable points. In the quantum domain, these points become finite regions, where the quantum Lyapunov exponents are throughout positive. Our results are illustrated for the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick (LMG) model, which is integrable, and for the Dicke Hamiltonian in the regular regime. These models are currently realized in various experimental setups, such as those with cold atoms and ion traps.
We investigate the onset of chaos in a periodically kicked Dicke model (KDM), using the out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC) as a diagnostic tool, in both the oscillator and the spin subspaces. In the large spin limit, the classical Hamiltonian map is constructed, which allows us to investigate the corresponding phase space dynamics and to compute the Lyapunov exponent. We show that the growth rate of the OTOC for the canonically conjugate coordinates of the oscillator is able to capture the Lyapunov exponent in the chaotic regime. The onset of chaos is further investigated using the saturation value of the OTOC, that can serve as an alternate indicator of chaos in a generic interacting quantum system. This is also supported by a system independent effective random matrix model. We further identify the quantum scars in KDM and detect their dynamical signature by using the OTOC dynamics. The relevance of the present study in the context of ongoing cold atom experiments is also discussed.
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) are an effective tool in characterizing black hole chaos, many-body thermalization, and quantum dynamics instability. Previous research findings have shown that the OTOCs' exponential growth (EG) marks the limit for quantum systems. However, we report in this paper a periodically-modulated nonlinear Schr\"odinger system, in which we interestingly find a way of OTOCs' growth: super-EG. We show that the quantum OTOCs, which stems from the quantum chaotic dynamics, will increase in a super-exponential way. We also find that in the classical limit, the hyper-chaos revealed by a linearly-increasing Lyapunov exponent actually triggers the super-EG of classical OTOCs. The results in this paper break the restraints of EG as the limit for quantum systems, which give us insight into the nature of quantum chaos in various fields of physics from black hole to many-body system.
It was proposed recently that the out-of-time-ordered four-point correlator (OTOC) may serve as a useful characteristic of quantum-chaotic behavior, because, in the semiclassical limit ℏ→0, its rate of exponential growth resembles the classical Lyapunov exponent. Here, we calculate the four-point correlator C(t) for the classical and quantum kicked rotor-a textbook driven chaotic system-and compare its growth rate at initial times with the standard definition of the classical Lyapunov exponent. Using both quantum and classical arguments, we show that the OTOC's growth rate and the Lyapunov exponent are, in general, distinct quantities, corresponding to the logarithm of the phase-space averaged divergence rate of classical trajectories and to the phase-space average of the logarithm, respectively. The difference appears to be more pronounced in the regime of low kicking strength K, where no classical chaos exists globally. In this case, the Lyapunov exponent quickly decreases as K→0, while the OTOC's growth rate may decrease much slower, showing a higher sensitivity to small chaotic islands in the phase space. We also show that the quantum correlator as a function of time exhibits a clear singularity at the Ehrenfest time t_{E}: transitioning from a time-independent value of t^{-1}lnC(t) at t<t_{E} to its monotonic decrease with time at t>t_{E}. We note that the underlying physics here is the same as in the theory of weak (dynamical) localization [Aleiner and Larkin, Phys. Rev. B 54, 14423 (1996)PRBMDO0163-182910.1103/PhysRevB.54.14423; Tian, Kamenev, and Larkin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 124101 (2004)PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.93.124101] and is due to a delay in the onset of quantum interference effects, which occur sharply at a time of the order of the Ehrenfest time.