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arXiv:2309.13412 · Physics Letters B

Thermal diffusivity and pole-skipping in the incoherent semilocally critical IR

Hyun-Sik Jeong

Published May 19, 2025• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Pole-skipping offers compelling evidence for the hydrodynamic origin of chaotic behavior in strongly coupled quantum systems. We demonstrate that the cumulative effect of higher-order corrections to the hydrodynamic diffusive mode, captured by the parameter Ω, determines the thermal diffusivity through chaos parameters, providing new insights into the interplay between chaos and hydrodynamics. In the incoherent limit, where momentum relaxation is pronounced, we show that the thermodynamically stable phase corresponds to a semi-locally critical IR fixed point. This finding extends previous analyses of simple IR fixed points and may offer a gravity dual description for stable phases beyond the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model in the incoherent regime. Additionally, we connect our findings to a universal bound on the thermal diffusion constant in holography , establishing a direct link with the dynamical critical exponent z . We derive a new relation, Ω = ( 2 − z ) / ( 2 z − 2 ) , and propose that it characterizes the thermodynamically stable phase for generic values of z .

DOI
10.1016/j.physletb.2025.139591

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Pole-skipping offers compelling evidence for the hydrodynamic origin of chaotic behavior in strongly coupled quantum systems. We demonstrate that the cumulative effect of higher-order corrections to the hydrodynamic diffusive mode, captured by the parameter Ω, determines the thermal diffusivity through chaos parameters, providing new insights into the interplay between chaos and hydrodynamics. In the incoherent limit, where momentum relaxation is pronounced, we show that the thermodynamically stable phase corresponds to a semi-locally critical IR fixed point. This finding extends previous analyses of simple IR fixed points and may offer a gravity dual description for stable phases beyond the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model in the incoherent regime. Additionally, we connect our findings to a universal bound on the thermal diffusion constant in holography , establishing a direct link with the dynamical critical exponent z . We derive a new relation, Ω = ( 2 − z ) / ( 2 z − 2 ) , and propose that it characterizes the thermodynamically stable phase for generic values of z .
Abstract Pole skipping is a recently discovered subtle effect in the thermal energy density retarded two point function at a special point in the complex (ω, p) planes. We propose that pole skipping is determined by the stress tensor contribution to many-body chaos, and the special point is at (ω, p)p.s.= iλ(T)(1,1/uB(T)) i{\lambda}^{(T)}\left(1,1/{u}_B^{(T)}\right) iλ(T)(1,1/uB(T)​) iλT11/uBT , whereλ(T)= 2π/βand uB(T) {u}_B^{(T)} uB(T)​ uBT are the stress tensor contributions to the Lyapunov exponent and the butterfly velocity respectively. While this proposal is consistent with previous studies conducted for maximally chaotic theories, where the stress tensor dominates chaos, it clarifies that one cannot use pole skipping to extract the Lyapunov exponent of a theory, which obeysλ≤λ(T). On the other hand, in a large class of strongly coupled but non-maximally chaotic theories uB(T) {u}_B^{(T)} uB(T)​ uBT is the true butterfly velocity and we conjecture thatuB≤ uB(T) {u}_B^{(T)} uB(T)​ uBT is a universal bound. While it remains a challenge to explain pole skipping in a general framework, we provide a stringent test of our proposal in the large-qlimit of the SYK chain, where we determineλ, uB, and the energy density two point function in closed form for all values of the coupling, interpolating between the free and maximally chaotic limits. Since such an explicit expression for a thermal correlator is one of a kind, we take the opportunity to analyze many of its properties: the coupling dependence of the diffusion constant, the dispersion relations of poles, and the convergence properties of all order hydrodynamics.
Hydrodynamics provides a universal description of interacting quantum field theories at sufficiently long times and wavelengths, but breaks down at scales dependent on microscopic details of the theory.In the vicinity of a quantum critical point, it is expected that some aspects of the dynamics are universal and dictated by properties of the critical point.We use gauge-gravity duality to investigate the breakdown of diffusive hydrodynamics in two low-temperature states dual to black holes with AdS 2 horizons, which exhibit quantum critical dynamics with an emergent scaling symmetry in time.We find that the breakdown is characterized by a collision between the diffusive pole of the retarded Green's function with a pole associated to the AdS 2 region of the geometry, such that the local equilibration time is set by infrared properties of the theory.The absolute values of the frequency and wave vector at the collision (ω eq and k eq ) provide a natural characterization of all the low-temperature diffusivities D of the states via D ¼ ω eq =k 2 eq , where ω eq ¼ 2πΔT is set by the temperature T and the scaling dimension Δ of an operator of the infrared quantum critical theory.We confirm that these relations are also satisfied in a Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev chain model in the limit of strong interactions.Our work paves the way toward a deeper understanding of transport in quantum critical phases.
Abstract Recent studies of out-of-time ordered thermal correlation functions (OTOC) in holographic systems and in solvable models such as the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model have yielded new insights into manifestations of many-body chaos. So far the chaotic behavior has been obtained through explicit calculations in specific models. In this paper we propose a unified description of the exponential growth and ballistic butterfly spreading of OTOCs across different systems using a newly formulated “quantum hydrodynamics,” which is valid at finite ℏ and to all orders in derivatives. The scrambling of a generic few-body operator in a chaotic system is described as building up a “hydrodynamic cloud,” and the exponential growth of the cloud arises from a shift symmetry of the hydrodynamic action. The shift symmetry also shields correlation functions of the energy density and flux, and time ordered correlation functions of generic operators from exponential growth, while leads to chaotic behavior in OTOCs. The theory also predicts an interesting phenomenon of the skipping of a pole at special values of complex frequency and momentum in two-point functions of energy density and flux. This pole-skipping phenomenon may be considered as a “smoking gun” for the hydrodynamic origin of the chaotic mode. We also discuss the possibility that such a hydrodynamic description could be a hallmark of maximally chaotic systems.
Abstract It has been known that the large-q complex Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model falls under the same universality class as that of van der Waals (mean-field) and saturates the Maldacena-Shenker-Stanford (MSS) bound, both features shared by various black holes. This makes the SYK model a useful tool in probing the fundamental nature of quantum chaos and holographic duality. This work establishes the robustness of this shared universality class and chaotic properties for SYK-like models by extending to a system of coupled large-q complex SYK models of different orders. We provide a detailed derivation of thermodynamic properties, specifically the critical exponents for an observed phase transition, as well as dynamical properties, in particular the Lyapunov exponent, via the out-of-time correlator calculations. Our analysis reveals that, despite the introduction of an additional scaling parameter through interaction strength ratios, the system undergoes a continuous phase transition at low temperatures, similar to that of the single SYK model. The critical exponents align with the Landau–Ginzburg (mean-field) universality class, shared with van der Waals gases and various AdS black holes. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the coupled SYK system remains maximally chaotic in the large-q limit at low temperatures, adhering to the MSS bound, a feature consistent with the single SYK model. These findings establish robustness and open avenues for broader inquiries into the universality and chaos in complex quantum systems. We provide a detailed outlook for future work by considering the ‘very’ low-temperature regime, where we discuss relations with the Hawking–Page phase transition observed in the holographic dual black holes. We present preliminary calculations and discuss the possible follow-ups that might be taken to make the connection robust.
Quantum chaos is one of the distinctive features of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, N Majorana fermions in 0+1 dimensions with infinite-range two-body interactions, which is attracting a lot of interest as a toy model for holography. Here we show analytically and numerically that a generalized SYK model with an additional one-body infinite-range random interaction, which is a relevant perturbation in the infrared, is still quantum chaotic and retains most of its holographic features for a fixed value of the perturbation and sufficiently high temperature. However, a chaotic-integrable transition, characterized by the vanishing of the Lyapunov exponent and spectral correlations given by Poisson statistics, occurs at a temperature that depends on the strength of the perturbation. We speculate about the gravity dual of this transition.
A bstract The holographic system described by Einstein-Maxwell-Chern-Simons dynamics in the bulk of AdS exhibits a chiral magnetic effect and a quantum critical point. Through numerical calculations, we find that the butterfly velocity can serve as a new identifier for the quantum critical point in this system. We show that the critical point is the point at which the butterfly velocity is equal to the speed of light in the direction of the magnetic field, while in the opposite direction the butterfly propagation vanishes. Furthermore, by studying the pole-skipping points of the response function of the operator dual to the tensor part of the metric perturbation in the bulk, we discover a set of order parameters that distinguish the two states of the system near the quantum critical point. Each of these order parameters is the sum of the absolute values of the real parts of momentum at all pole-skipping points associated with a particular frequency. This quantity vanishes in the disordered state while taking a positive value in the ordered state. In addition, our results confirm the idea that the chiral magnetic effect can manifest macroscopically through quantum chaos.