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arXiv:2306.14988 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Commuting SYK: a pseudo-holographic model

Ping Gao

Published Jan 24, 2024• 16 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A bstract In this work, we study a type of commuting SYK model in which all terms in the Hamiltonian are commutative to each other. Because of the commutativity, this model has a large number of conserved charges and is integrable. After the ensemble average of random couplings, we can solve this model exactly in any N . Though this integral model is not holographic, we do find that it has some holography-like features, especially the near-perfect size winding in high temperatures. Therefore, we would like to call it pseudo-holographic. We also find that the size winding of this model has a narrowly peaked size distribution, which is different from the ordinary SYK model. We apply the traversable wormhole teleportation protocol in the commuting SYK model and find that the teleportation has a few features similar to the semiclassical traversable wormhole but in different parameter regimes. We show that the underlying physics is not entirely determined by the size-winding mechanism but involves the peaked-size mechanism and thermalization. Lastly, we comment on the recent simulation of the dynamics of traversable wormholes on Google’s quantum processor.

DOI
10.1007/jhep01(2024)149

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A bstract In this work, we study a type of commuting SYK model in which all terms in the Hamiltonian are commutative to each other. Because of the commutativity, this model has a large number of conserved charges and is integrable. After the ensemble average of random couplings, we can solve this model exactly in any N . Though this integral model is not holographic, we do find that it has some holography-like features, especially the near-perfect size winding in high temperatures. Therefore, we would like to call it pseudo-holographic. We also find that the size winding of this model has a narrowly peaked size distribution, which is different from the ordinary SYK model. We apply the traversable wormhole teleportation protocol in the commuting SYK model and find that the teleportation has a few features similar to the semiclassical traversable wormhole but in different parameter regimes. We show that the underlying physics is not entirely determined by the size-winding mechanism but involves the peaked-size mechanism and thermalization. Lastly, we comment on the recent simulation of the dynamics of traversable wormholes on Google’s quantum processor.
A recent article [Nature 612, 51-55 (2022)] claims to observe traversable wormhole dynamics in an experiment. This claim is based upon performing a teleportation protocol using a Hamiltonian that consists of seven Majorana fermions with five fully-commuting terms. The Hamiltonian is generated via a machine-learning procedure designed to replicate the teleportation behavior of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. The authors claim that the learned Hamiltonian reproduces gravitational dynamics of the SYK model and demonstrates gravitational teleportation through an emergent wormhole. We find: (i) in contrast to these claims, the learned Hamiltonian does not exhibit thermalization; (ii) the teleportation signal only resembles the SYK model for operators that were used in the machine-learning training; (iii) the observed perfect size winding is in fact a generic feature of small-size, fully-commuting models, and does not appear to persist in larger-size fully-commuting models or in non-commuting models at equivalent system sizes
With the long-term goal of studying models of quantum gravity in the lab, we propose holographic teleportation protocols that can be readily executed in table-top experiments. These protocols exhibit similar behavior to that seen in the recent traversable wormhole constructions of [1,2]: information that is scrambled into one half of an entangled system will, following a weak coupling between the two halves, unscramble into the other half. We introduce the concept of teleportation by size to capture how the physics of operator-size growth naturally leads to information transmission. The transmission of a signal through a semi-classical holographic wormhole corresponds to a rather special property of the operator-size distribution we call size winding. For more general systems (which may not have a clean emergent geometry), we argue that imperfect size winding is a generalization of the traversable wormhole phenomenon. In addition, a form of signalling continues to function at high temperature and at large times for generic chaotic systems, even though it does not correspond to a signal going through a geometrical wormhole, but rather to an interference effect involving macroscopically different emergent geometries. Finally, we outline implementations feasible with current technology in two experimental platforms: Rydberg atom arrays and trapped ions.
A bstract In this work, we consider the off-diagonal coupling between two supersymmetric SYK models, which preserves both supersymmetry and solvability. We found that the interaction terms of the N=2 supersymmetric SYK are holographically interpreted as a possible supersymmetric traversable wormhole. First, we introduce the coupling in the Homologic N=1 SYK model as a simplified example. Similar couplings can also be applied to the N=2 chiral SYK model with BPS states. We propose a special form of N=4 SYK by introducing supermultiplets, which also naturally include the coupling terms with additional symmetries. The N=4 holographic properties are investigated through the analysis of N=2 SYK theory. Furthermore, the effective actions are studied in both the thermal limit and the low-energy limit. We also investigate the SYK-like thermal field double states of the supersymmetric SYK model and the transmission amplitude between single-sided N=2 models in Lorentz time. Additionally, we study the multi-sided N=2,4 OTOCs.
The traversable wormhole protocol in coupled Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) systems produces a transmission signal C(t) widely interpreted as evidence of holographic dynamics. Recent work has questioned this interpretation, showing that similar signals arise in generic thermalizing systems. We address what the signal actually probes by systematically destroying quantum chaos in the SYK model via random coupling deletion, while monitoring the transmission signal across the chaos-to-integrable transition. Using exact diagonalization of the doubled SYK model at N=10 with 50 disorder realizations per sparsity, supplemented by Krylov-subspace extensions to N=20, we find that the ensemble-averaged peak height varies by less than 1.1% across a 50-fold sparsification range, even as the underlying spectrum transitions from Gaussian-unitary-ensemble to sub-Poisson statistics. A 1,200-instance sweep over the inter-system coupling mu confirms that the signal is controlled by mu alone, with no dependence on internal chaos. We further verify that the thermofield double state retains its thermal structure under sparsification despite substantial changes to the state vector, providing a structural explanation for the invariance. These results indicate that the transmission signal diagnoses inter-system coupling fidelity rather than holographic dynamics, and that future quantum-simulation experiments require independent chaos diagnostics to substantiate gravitational claims. As a practical consequence, the invariance implies that 98% of the Hamiltonian's coupling terms can be discarded (with variance rescaling of the survivors), reducing the gate count per Trotter step by approximately 50x at N=10 and bringing larger traversable-wormhole simulations within experimental reach.