While the notion of quantum chaos is tied to random matrix spectral correlations, also eigenstate properties in chaotic systems are often assumed to be described by random matrix theory. Analytic insights into eigenstate correlations can be obtained by the recently introduced partial spectral form factor. Here, we study the partial spectral form factor in chaotic dual-unitary quantum circuits in the thermodynamic limit. We compute the latter for a finite subsystem in a brickwork circuit coupled to an infinite complement. For initial times, shorter than the subsystem's size, spatial locality and (dual) unitarity implies a constant partial spectral form factor, clearly deviating from the linear ramp of the random matrix prediction. In contrast, for larger times we prove, that the partial spectral form factor follows the random matrix result up to exponentially suppressed corrections. We supplement our exact analytical results by semi-analytic computations performed in the thermodynamic limit as well as with numerics for finite-size systems.
While the notion of quantum chaos is tied to random matrix spectral correlations, also eigenstate properties in chaotic systems are often assumed to be described by random matrix theory. Analytic insights into eigenstate correlations can be obtained by the recently introduced partial spectral form factor. Here, we study the partial spectral form factor in chaotic dual-unitary quantum circuits in the thermodynamic limit. We compute the latter for a finite subsystem in a brickwork circuit coupled to an infinite complement. For initial times, shorter than the subsystem's size, spatial locality and (dual) unitarity implies a constant partial spectral form factor, clearly deviating from the linear ramp of the random matrix prediction. In contrast, for larger times we prove, that the partial spectral form factor follows the random matrix result up to exponentially suppressed corrections. We supplement our exact analytical results by semi-analytic computations performed in the thermodynamic limit as well as with numerics for finite-size systems.
Having spectral correlations that, over small enough energy scales, are described by random matrix theory is regarded as the most general defining feature of quantum chaotic systems as it applies in the many-body setting and away from any semiclassical limit. Although this property is extremely difficult to prove analytically for generic many-body systems, a rigorous proof has been achieved for dual-unitary circuits—a special class of local quantum circuits that remain unitary upon swapping space and time. Here we consider the fate of this property when moving from dual-unitary to generic quantum circuits focusing on the , i.e., the Fourier transform of the two-point correlation. We begin with a numerical survey that, in agreement with previous studies, suggests that there exists a finite region in parameter space where dual-unitary physics is stable and spectral correlations are still described by random matrix theory, although up to a maximal quasienergy scale. To explain these findings, we develop a perturbative expansion: it recovers the random matrix theory predictions, provided the terms occurring in perturbation theory obey a relatively simple set of assumptions. We then provide numerical evidence and a heuristic analytical argument supporting these assumptions. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Phenomena in quantum chaotic systems such as spectral fluctuations are known to be described remarkably well by the random matrix theory (RMT) in small energy intervals and over large time scales. However, in exchange for analytical tractability, RMT has been constructed to leave out an important element of realistic physical systems { the notion of locality. Since quantum information propagates at a finite speed in a spatially-extended quantum chaotic system, there exists time scales before which RMT is effective. How do we describe the non-equilibrium quantum dynamics at intermediate timescales which are much longer than the local relaxation time but too short for RMT to apply? What are the signatures of many-body quantum chaotic systems beyond the description of RMT? In this thesis, we address these questions by analysing minimal models that incorporate a notion of locality and at the same time retain some analytical tractability of RMT. More specifically, we study Floquet quantum circuits that are random in space but periodic in time. These circuits consist of local and random quantum gates that act on a q-state `spin' at each site. After a brief review of classical chaos, quantum chaos, and quantum circuits in Chapter 1, we present three main results. In Chapter 2, we formulate a diagrammatical approach for computing ensemble averages of observables over random unitary circuits, and derive exact results on spectral statistics and dynamical observables for a Floquet circuit in the large-q limit. In Chapter 3, we further investigate the spectral statistics in spatiallyextended many-body quantum chaotic systems by computing the spectral form factor K(t) analytically and numerically. We show that K(t) follows the RMT description at times longer than the Thouless time tTh and identify the scaling of tTh at the large-q limit of a Floquet circuit. In Chapter 4, we discuss eigenstate correlations for spatially-extended many-body quantum chaotic systems, in terms of the statistical properties of matrix elements of local observables. While the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH) is known to give an excellent description of these quantities, the phenomenon of scrambling and the butterfly effect imply structure beyond ETH. We determine analytically and verify numerically the universal form of this structure at long distances and small eigenvalue separations for Floquet systems.
We investigate the appearance of quantum chaos in a single many-body wave function by analyzing the statistical properties of the eigenvalues of its reduced density matrix ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{A}$ of a spatial subsystem A. We find that (i): the spectrum of the density matrix is described by so-called Wishart random matrix theory, which (ii): exhibits besides level repulsion, spectral rigidity, and universal spectral correlations between eigenvalues separated by distances ranging from one up to many mean level spacings, which we investigate. We use these universal spectral characteristics of the reduced density matrix as a definition of chaos in the wave function. A simple and precise characterization of such universal correlations in a spectrum is a segment of strictly linear growth at sufficiently long times, recently called the ``ramp,'' of the spectral form factor which is the Fourier transform of the correlation function between a pair of eigenvalues. It turns out that Wishart and standard random matrix theory have the same universal ``ramp.'' Specifically, here numerical results for the spectral form factor of the density matrix of generic nonintegrable many-body systems, such as one-dimensional quantum Ising and Floquet spin models, are found to exhibit a universal ``ramp'' identical to that appearing for a ``random pure state'' (``Page state,'' or ``Haar state''). The density matrix of the latter is precisely the Wishart random matrix, the reduced density matrix of a completely random wave function. In addition, we study the development of chaos in the wave function by letting an initial direct product state evolve under the unitary time evolution. We find that the universal spectral correlations as manifested by the ``ramp'' set in as soon as the entanglement entropy begins to grow, and first develop for the eigenvalues at the top of the spectrum of the density matrix ${\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{\ensuremath{\rho}}}_{A}$, subsequently spreading over the entire spectrum at later times. Finally, we study a prethermalized regime described by a generalized Gibbs ensemble, which develops in a rapidly driven Floquet model at intermediate times. We find that the prethermalized regime exhibits no chaos, as evidenced by the absence of a ``ramp'' in the spectral form factor of the density matrix, while the universal spectral correlations start to develop when the prethermalized regime finally relaxes at late times to the fully thermalized (infinite temperature) chaotic regime.
Random matrix spectral correlations is a defining feature of quantum chaos. Here, we study such correlations in a minimal model of chaotic many-body quantum dynamics where interactions are confined to the system’s boundary, dubbed , in terms of the spectral form factor and its fluctuations. We exactly calculate the latter in the limit of large local Hilbert space dimension q q for different classes of random boundary interactions and find it to coincide with random matrix theory, possibly after a non-zero Thouless time. The latter effect is due to a drastic enhancement of the spectral form factor, when integer time and system size fulfill a resonance condition. We compare our semiclassical (large q q ) results with numerics at small local Hilbert space dimension ( q=2,3 q = 2 , 3 ) and observe qualitatively similar features as in the semiclassical regime.
We study thermalisation and spectral properties of extended systems connected, through their boundaries, to a thermalising Markovian bath. Specifically, we consider periodically driven systems modelled by brickwork quantum circuits where a finite section (block) of the circuit is constituted by arbitrary local unitary gates while its complement, which plays the role of the bath, is dual-unitary. We show that the evolution of local observables and the spectral form factor are determined by the same quantum channel, which we use to characterise the system's dynamics and spectral properties. In particular, we identify a family of fine-tuned quantum circuits -- which we call strongly non-ergodic -- that fails to thermalise even in this controlled setting, and, accordingly, their spectral form factor does not follow the random matrix theory prediction. We provide a set of necessary conditions on the local quantum gates that lead to strong non-ergodicity, and in the case of qubits, we provide a complete classification of strongly non-ergodic circuits. We also study the opposite extreme case of circuits that are almost dual-unitary, i.e., where thermalisation occurs with the fastest possible rate. We show that, in these systems, local observables and spectral form factor approach respectively thermal values and random matrix theory prediction exponentially fast. We provide a perturbative characterisation of the dynamics and, in particular, of the time-scale for thermalisation.
Quantum chaos is commonly associated with the emergence of random-matrix statistics in the spectra of quantum systems. A useful diagnostic is provided by the spectral form factor (SFF), which for random matrix ensembles displays a universal linear-growth regime (`ramp'). In the last decade, a landmark result by Bertini, Kos and Prosen (BKP) identified for the first time a class of geometrically local quantum dynamics of finite-dimensional particles where the SFF provably exhibits a random-matrix ramp: periodically driven (Floquet) qudit chains whose evolution is described by `dual-unitary' circuits. Here, building on the BKP result and on a recently proposed variant of the Feynman-Kitaev clock construction, we obtain a spectral ramp in a class of static, geometrically local Hamiltonians. Our strategy is to embed the Floquet quasienergy spectrum of a dual-unitary circuit into the energy spectrum of a static local Hamiltonian, and to prove that the latter's connected SFF inherits the BKP ramp within a symmetry sector. This is to our knowledge the first proof of a spectral ramp in a time-independent, geometrically local many-body system with finite local Hilbert space dimension.