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arXiv:2504.13258 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Universal nonequilibrium dynamics of pure states and density-dependent thermalization in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model

Rishik Perugu, Arijit Haldar, Sumilan Banerjee

Published Oct 16, 2025• 2 citations
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Abstract

Nonequilibrium dynamics of unentangled and entangled pure states in interacting quantum systems is crucial for harnessing quantum information and to understand quantum thermalization. We develop a general Schwinger-Keldysh (SK) field theory for nonequilibrium dynamics of pure states of fermions. We apply our formalism to study the time evolution of initial density inhomogeneity and multipoint correlations of pure states in the complex Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models. We demonstrate a remarkable universality in the dynamics of pure states in the SYK model. We show that dynamics of almost all pure states in a fixed particle number sector is solely determined by a set of universal large-$N$ Kadanoff-Baym equations. Moreover, irrespective of the initial state the site- and disorder-averaged Green's function thermalizes instantaneously, whereas local and nonlocal Green's functions have finite thermalization rate. We provide understanding of our numerical and analytical large-$N$ results through random-matrix theory (RMT) analysis. Furthermore, we show that the thermalization of an initial pure product state in the noninteracting ${\mathrm{SYK}}_{2}$ model is independent of fermion filling and an initial density inhomogeneity decays with weak but long lived oscillations due to dephasing. In contrast, the interacting ${\mathrm{SYK}}_{q\ensuremath{\ge}4}$ model thermalizes slower than the noninteracting model and exhibits filling-dependent monotonic relaxation of initial inhomogeneity. For evolution of entangled pure states, we show that the initial entanglement is encoded in the nonlocal and/or multipoint quantum correlations that relax as the system thermalizes.

DOI
10.1103/9cbp-7tvv

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Nonequilibrium dynamics of unentangled and entangled pure states in interacting quantum systems is crucial for harnessing quantum information and to understand quantum thermalization. We develop a general Schwinger-Keldysh (SK) field theory for nonequilibrium dynamics of pure states of fermions. We apply our formalism to study the time evolution of initial density inhomogeneity and multipoint correlations of pure states in the complex Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models. We demonstrate a remarkable universality in the dynamics of pure states in the SYK model. We show that dynamics of almost all pure states in a fixed particle number sector is solely determined by a set of universal large-NNN Kadanoff-Baym equations. Moreover, irrespective of the initial state the site- and disorder-averaged Green's function thermalizes instantaneously, whereas local and nonlocal Green's functions have finite thermalization rate. We provide understanding of our numerical and analytical large-NNN results through random-matrix theory (RMT) analysis. Furthermore, we show that the thermalization of an initial pure product state in the noninteracting SYK2{\mathrm{SYK}}_{2}SYK2​ model is independent of fermion filling and an initial density inhomogeneity decays with weak but long lived oscillations due to dephasing. In contrast, the interacting SYKq\ensuremath≥4{\mathrm{SYK}}_{q\ensuremath{\ge}4}SYKq\ensuremath≥4​ model thermalizes slower than the noninteracting model and exhibits filling-dependent monotonic relaxation of initial inhomogeneity. For evolution of entangled pure states, we show that the initial entanglement is encoded in the nonlocal and/or multipoint quantum correlations that relax as the system thermalizes.
We describe the nonequilibrium quench dynamics of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev models of fermions with random all-to-all interactions. These provide tractable models of the dynamics of quantum systems without quasiparticle excitations. The Kadanoff-Baym equations show that, at long times, the fermion two-point function has a thermal form at a final temperature determined by energy conservation, and the numerical analysis is consistent with a thermalization rate proportional to this temperature. We also obtain an exact analytic solution of the quench dynamics in the large qqq limit of a model with qqq fermion interactions: in this limit, the thermalization of the two-point function is instantaneous.
We investigate the nonequilibrium dynamics of complex Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models in the $q\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ limit, where q/2q/2q/2 denotes the order of the random Dirac fermion interaction. We extend previous results by Eberlein et al. [Phys. Rev. B 96, 205123 (2017)] to show that a single SYK $q\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ Hamiltonian for $t\ensuremath{\ge}0$ is a perfect thermalizer in the sense that the local Green's function is instantaneously thermal. The only memories of the quantum state for t<0t<0t<0 are its charge density and its energy density at t=0t=0t=0. Our result is valid for all quantum states amenable to a 1/q1/q1/q expansion, which are generated from an equilibrium SYK state in the asymptotic past and acted upon by an arbitrary combination of time-dependent SYK Hamiltonians for t<0t<0t<0. Importantly, this implies that a single SYK $q\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$ Hamiltonian is a perfect thermalizer even for nonequilibrium states generated in this manner.
Understanding how quantum chaotic systems generate entanglement can provide insight into their microscopic chaotic dynamics and can help distinguish between different classes of chaotic behavior. Using von Neumann entanglement entropy, we study a nonentangled state evolved under three variants of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model with a finite number of Majorana fermions N. All the variants exhibit linear entanglement growth at early times, which at late times saturates to a universal value consistent with random matrix theory (RMT), but their growth rates differ. We interpret this as a large-N effect, arising from the enhanced nonlocality of fermionic operators in SYK and binary SYK, absent in spin operators of the spin-SYK model. Numerically, we find that these differences emerge gradually with increasing N. Although all variants are quantum chaotic, their entanglement dynamics reflect varying scrambling rates and indicate that the entanglement production rate serves as a fine-grained probe of scrambling beyond conventional measures. To probe its effect on the thermalization properties of these models, we study the two-point autocorrelation function, finding no differences between the SYK variants, but deviations from RMT predictions for N≥24, particularly near the crossover from exponential decay to saturation regime.
We investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of complex Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models in the q→∞q\rightarrow\inftyq→∞ limit, where q/2q/2q/2 denotes the order of the random Dirac fermion interaction. We extend previous results by Eberlein et al. [Phys. Rev. B 96, 205123 (2017)] to show that a single SYK q→∞q\rightarrow\inftyq→∞ Hamiltonian for t≥0t\geq 0t≥0 is a perfect thermalizer in the sense that the local Green's function is instantaneously thermal. The only memories of the quantum state for t<0t<0t<0 are its charge density and its energy density at t=0t=0t=0. Our result is valid for all quantum states amenable to a~1/q1/q1/q-expansion, which are generated from an equilibrium SYK state in the asymptotic past and acted upon by an arbitrary combination of time-dependent SYK Hamiltonians for t<0t<0t<0. Importantly, this implies that a single SYK q→∞q\rightarrow\inftyq→∞ Hamiltonian is a perfect thermalizer even for non-equilibrium states generated in this manner.
The question of thermalization of a closed quantum system is of central interest in nonequilibrium quantum many-body physics. Here we present one such study analyzing the dynamics of a closed coupled Majorana SYK system. We have a large- q SYK model prepared initially at equilibrium quenched by introducing a random hopping term, thus leading to nonequilibrium dynamics. We find that the final stationary state reaches thermal equilibrium with respect to the Green's functions and energy. Accordingly, the final state is characterized by calculating its final temperature and the thermalization rate. We provide a detailed review of analytical methods and derive the required Kadanoff-Baym equations, which are then solved using the algorithm developed in this work. Our results display rich thermalization dynamics in a closed quantum system in the thermodynamic limit.
Schwinger Keldysh field theory is a widely used paradigm to study nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum many-body systems starting from a thermal state. We extend this formalism to describe nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum systems starting from arbitrary initial many-body density matrices. We show how this can be done for both bosons and fermions, and for both closed and open quantum systems, using additional sources coupled to bilinears of the fields at the initial time, calculating Green's functions in a theory with these sources, and then taking appropriate set of derivatives of these Green's functions with respect to initial sources to obtain physical observables. The set of derivatives depends on the initial density matrix. The physical correlators in a dynamics with arbitrary initial conditions do not satisfy Wick's theorem, even for noninteracting systems. However, our formalism constructs intermediate ``$n\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{particle}$ Green's functions'' that obey Wick's theorem and provide a prescription to obtain physical correlation functions from them. This allows us to obtain analytic answers for all physical many-body correlation functions of a noninteracting system even when it is initialized to an arbitrary density matrix. We use these exact expressions to obtain an estimate of the violation of Wick's theorem and relate it to presence of connected multiparticle initial correlations in the system. We illustrate this new formalism by calculating density and current profiles in many-body fermionic and bosonic open quantum systems initialized to nontrivial density matrices. We have also shown how this formalism can be extended to interacting many-body systems.