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arXiv:2502.17594 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Onset of quantum chaos and ergodicity in spin systems with highly degenerate Hilbert spaces

Mahmoud Abdelshafy, Rubem Mondaini, Marcos Rigol

Published Sep 22, 2025• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We show that in systems with highly degenerate energy spectra, such as the two-dimensional transverse-field Ising model (2DTFIM) in the strong-field limit, quantum chaos can emerge in finite systems for arbitrary small perturbations. In this regime, the presence of extensive quasiconserved quantities can prevent finite systems from becoming ergodic. We study the ensuing crossover to ergodicity in a family of models that includes the 2DTFIM, in which the onset of ergodic behavior exhibits universality and occurs for perturbation strengths that decrease polynomially with increasing system size. We discuss the behaviors of quantum chaos indicators, such as level spacing statistics and bipartite entanglement, and of the fidelity susceptibilities and spectral functions across the crossover.

DOI
10.1103/zc68-wj2f

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We show that in systems with highly degenerate energy spectra, such as the two-dimensional transverse-field Ising model (2DTFIM) in the strong-field limit, quantum chaos can emerge in finite systems for arbitrary small perturbations. In this regime, the presence of extensive quasiconserved quantities can prevent finite systems from becoming ergodic. We study the ensuing crossover to ergodicity in a family of models that includes the 2DTFIM, in which the onset of ergodic behavior exhibits universality and occurs for perturbation strengths that decrease polynomially with increasing system size. We discuss the behaviors of quantum chaos indicators, such as level spacing statistics and bipartite entanglement, and of the fidelity susceptibilities and spectral functions across the crossover.
We show that the onset of quantum chaos at infinite temperature in two many-body one-dimensional lattice models, the perturbed spin-1/2 XXZ and Anderson models, is characterized by universal behavior. Specifically, we show that the onset of quantum chaos is marked by maxima of the typical fidelity susceptibilities that scale with the square of the inverse average level spacing, saturating their upper bound, and that the strength of the integrability- or localization-breaking perturbation at these maxima decreases with increasing system size. We also show that the spectral function below the ``Thouless'' energy (in the quantum-chaotic regime) diverges when approaching those maxima. Our results suggest that, in the thermodynamic limit, arbitrarily small integrability- or localization-breaking perturbations result in quantum chaos in the many-body quantum systems studied here.
Integrable quantum systems of finite size are generically robust against weak enough integrability-breaking perturbations, but become quantum chaotic and thermalizing if the integrability breaking is strong enough. We argue that the onset of quantum chaos can be described as a Fock-space delocalization process, with the eigenstates of the integrable system being taken as the Fock states. The integrability-breaking perturbation introduces hopping in this Fock space, and chaos sets in when this hopping delocalizes the many-body eigenstates in this space. Depending on the range of the dominant Fock-space hopping, delocalization can occur either through a crossover or via a transition that becomes sharp in the appropriate large-system dynamic limit. In either case, the perturbation strength at the onset of chaos scales to zero in the usual thermodynamic limit, with a size dependence that we estimate analytically and compute numerically for a few specific models. We also identify two intermediate finite-size-dependent regimes: There is generally an intermediate nonchaotic regime in which integrability is broken strongly enough to produce some systemwide many-body resonances but not enough to thermalize the system. In spatially extended systems (but not in quantum dots) there is also a crossover or transition between chaotic regimes where the ratio of the system size to the mean free path of the quasiparticles of the integrable system is small versus large compared to unity.
Characterizing states of matter through the lens of their ergodic properties is a fascinating new direction of research. In the quantum realm, the many-body localization (MBL) was proposed to be the paradigmatic ergodicity breaking phenomenon, which extends the concept of Anderson localization to interacting systems. At the same time, random matrix theory has established a powerful framework for characterizing the onset of quantum chaos and ergodicity (or the absence thereof) in quantum many-body systems. Here we numerically study the spectral statistics of disordered interacting spin chains, which represent prototype models expected to exhibit MBL. We study the ergodicity indicator g=log_{10}(t_{H}/t_{Th}), which is defined through the ratio of two characteristic many-body time scales, the Thouless time t_{Th} and the Heisenberg time t_{H}, and hence resembles the logarithm of the dimensionless conductance introduced in the context of Anderson localization. We argue that the ergodicity breaking transition in interacting spin chains occurs when both time scales are of the same order, t_{Th}≈t_{H}, and g becomes a system-size independent constant. Hence, the ergodicity breaking transition in many-body systems carries certain analogies with the Anderson localization transition. Intriguingly, using a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless correlation length we observe a scaling solution of g across the transition, which allows for detection of the crossing point in finite systems. We discuss the observation that scaled results in finite systems by increasing the system size exhibit a flow towards the quantum chaotic regime.
We report a systematic investigation of universal quantum chaotic signatures in the transverse field Ising model on an Erdős-Rényi network. This is achieved by studying local spectral measures such as the level spacing and the level velocity statistics. A spectral form factor analysis is also performed as a global measure, probing energy level correlations at arbitrary spectral distances. Our findings show that these measures capture the breakdown of chaotic behavior upon varying the connectivity and the strength of the transverse field in various regimes. We demonstrate that the level spacing distribution and the spectral form factor signal this breakdown for sparsely and densely connected networks. The velocity statistics capture the surviving chaotic signatures in the sparse limit. However, these integrablelike regimes extend over a vanishingly small segment in the full range of connectivity. Our work elucidates the emergence of quantum chaos in relation to network topology, establishing a bridge between many-body physics and network theory.
We investigate signatures of quantum chaos within Ising spin chains subjected to transverse and longitudinal fields, incorporating both local (nearest-neighbor) and non-local (long-range) couplings. While local Ising models may exhibit integrable or chaotic dynamics contingent on interaction strengths and field parameters, systems with non-local interactions generally display a stronger propensity toward chaos, even when the non-local couplings are weak. By examining the distribution of energy level spacings through the level spacing ratio, we delineate the transition from integrable to chaotic regimes and characterize the emergence of quantum chaos in these systems. Our analysis demonstrates that non-local couplings facilitate faster operator spreading and more intricate dynamical behavior, enabling these systems to approach maximal chaos more readily than their local counterparts. Additionally, we analyze Krylov complexity as a dynamical probe of chaos, observing a characteristic peak followed by a plateau at late times in chaotic regimes. This behavior provides a quantitative means to distinguish between integrable and chaotic phases, with the growth rate and saturation level of the complexity serving as effective indicators. Our findings underscore the role of non-local interactions in accelerating the onset of chaos and modifying dynamical complexity in quantum spin chains.
We study the onset of eigenstate thermalization in the two-dimensional transverse field Ising model (2D-TFIM) in the square lattice. We consider two nonequivalent Hamiltonians: the ferromagnetic 2D-TFIM and the antiferromagnetic 2D-TFIM in the presence of a uniform longitudinal field. We use full exact diagonalization to examine the behavior of quantum chaos indicators and of the diagonal matrix elements of operators of interest in the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian. An analysis of finite size effects reveals that quantum chaos and eigenstate thermalization occur in those systems whenever the fields are nonvanishing and not too large.