We investigate signatures of quantum chaos in the mixed-field quantum Ising model on finite-size Erdős-Rényi graphs using probes scalable on near-term quantum devices. Upon tuning the graph connectivity, the system exhibits a crossover from a localized regime at low connectivity, through a chaotic regime at intermediate connectivity, to a permutation-symmetric integrable limit near all-to-all connectivity. This crossover has possible implications for the performance and trainability of variational algorithms such as QAOA. We characterize this crossover in finite-size systems using complementary probes. First, deep thermalization of a projected ensemble starting from a product state reveals slow (fast) convergence to the Haar ensemble at extremal (intermediate) connectivities. Second, we analyze eigenstate and eigenvalue correlations using the partial spectral form factor, an experimentally scalable proxy for the spectral form factor with reduced resource overhead, and observe characteristic chaos signatures at intermediate connectivities and distinct deviations at extremal connectivities. Finally, we explore the Krylov complexity of operators, a locality-independent diagnostic that, although not directly experimentally accessible, serves as a tool for quantifying scrambling. We show that it is maximized deep in the chaotic regime, corroborating the signatures observed through the experimentally scalable probes. Our results provide finite-size benchmarks demonstrating robust signatures of chaos in scalable probes and suggest that these diagnostics can be implemented in current quantum platforms to access regimes beyond classical simulation.
We investigate signatures of quantum chaos in the mixed-field quantum Ising model on finite-size Erdős-Rényi graphs using probes scalable on near-term quantum devices. Upon tuning the graph connectivity, the system exhibits a crossover from a localized regime at low connectivity, through a chaotic regime at intermediate connectivity, to a permutation-symmetric integrable limit near all-to-all connectivity. This crossover has possible implications for the performance and trainability of variational algorithms such as QAOA. We characterize this crossover in finite-size systems using complementary probes. First, deep thermalization of a projected ensemble starting from a product state reveals slow (fast) convergence to the Haar ensemble at extremal (intermediate) connectivities. Second, we analyze eigenstate and eigenvalue correlations using the partial spectral form factor, an experimentally scalable proxy for the spectral form factor with reduced resource overhead, and observe characteristic chaos signatures at intermediate connectivities and distinct deviations at extremal connectivities. Finally, we explore the Krylov complexity of operators, a locality-independent diagnostic that, although not directly experimentally accessible, serves as a tool for quantifying scrambling. We show that it is maximized deep in the chaotic regime, corroborating the signatures observed through the experimentally scalable probes. Our results provide finite-size benchmarks demonstrating robust signatures of chaos in scalable probes and suggest that these diagnostics can be implemented in current quantum platforms to access regimes beyond classical simulation.
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 the integrability-to-chaos transition and information scrambling in Ising spin networks via a graph-theoretic formulation. Modeling spins as vertices and interactions as edges encoded by adjacency matrices across path, Erdos-Renyi, and Watts-Strogatz topologies, we demonstrate that long-range couplings and heterogeneous degree distributions markedly accelerate quantum information propagation. The Hamiltonian comprises local and normalized non-local interactions; tuning the non-local coupling and field heterogeneity drives integrability breaking. To quantify scrambling, we employ bipartite mutual and tripartite information. Increasing non-local interactions drives tripartite information to large negative values, signaling deep information scrambling. The squared commutators constructed from out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) exhibit early-time exponential growth; equivalently, the OTOC four-point functions themselves decay exponentially, yielding quantum Lyapunov exponents that scale systematically with parameters governing the chaotic regime. Complementing this, Krylov complexity reveals rapid operator growth in the chaotic phase, synchronizing with OTOC and mutual information dynamics. Spectrally, the transition manifests as a shift from Poissonian to Wigner-Dyson level spacing statistics. The spectral form factor (SFF) exhibits the characteristic slope-dip-ramp-plateau structure, enabling the extraction of Thouless and Heisenberg times. Crucially, a reduced Thouless time strongly correlates with accelerated information and operator scrambling. Ultimately, this work establishes a unified framework bridging network topology with information-theoretic, operator, and spectral diagnostics, offering insights into thermalization and non-equilibrium dynamics in quantum many-body systems.
The spectral form factor (SFF) captures universal spectral fluctuations as signatures of quantum chaos, and has been instrumental in advancing multiple frontiers of physics including the studies of black holes and quantum many-body systems. The measurement of the SFF in many-body systems is however challenging due to the difficulty in resolving level spacings that become exponentially small with increasing system size. Here, we utilize the random measurement toolbox to perform a direct experimental measurement of the SFF, and hence probe the presence or absence of chaos in quantum many-body systems on superconducting quantum processors. For a Floquet chaotic system, we observe signatures of both short- and long-range spectral correlations in the SFF given by the ramp-plateau behavior. Furthermore, for a Hamiltonian system we utilize the SFF to distinguish a quantum many-body chaotic phase and the prethermal many-body localization. We observe the dip-ramp-plateau behavior of random matrix theory in the chaotic phase and contrast the scaling of the plateau time in system size between the many-body chaotic and localized phases. Finally, we probe the eigenstate statistics by measuring a generalization of the SFF, known as the partial SFF, and observe distinct behaviors in the purity of the reduced density matrices in these two phases. This work unveils a new experimental way of extracting the universal signatures of many-body quantum chaos in quantum devices by probing short- and long-range correlations in the energy spectrum and eigenstates.
We study how two distinct signatures of quantum chaos, the level spacing ratio ⟨r⟩and a four- eigenstate correlator (FESC), behave as integrability is gradually broken in the disordered spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain. Working within the Stot z = 0 sector at system sizes N = 12, 14, and 16 via exact diagonalization, we observe that these two diagnostics do not track each other across the crossover. The level spacing ratio settles into Wigner-Dyson statistics already at rather weak disorder, but the FESC stays sparse, well below its random-matrix expectation, over a wide range of disorder strengths, and never clearly approaches a dense regime before many-body localization sets in. Taken together, these observations point to a finite-size window in which the energy spectrum looks chaotic while the eigenstates still carry residual structure from integrability. The FESC thus serves as a sharper probe than ⟨r⟩ alone, picking up correlations that standard spectral measures miss.
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 establish a rigorous connection between quantum coherence and quantum chaos by employing coherence measures originating from the resource theory framework as a diagnostic tool for quantum chaos.We quantify this connection at two different levels: quantum states and quantum channels.At the level of states, we show how several well-studied quantifiers of chaos are, in fact, quantum coherence measures in disguise (or closely related to them).We further this connection for all quantum coherence measures by using tools from majorization theory.Then we numerically study the coherence of chaotic-versus-integrable eigenstates and find excellent agreement with random matrix theory in the bulk of the spectrum.At the level of channels, we show that the coherence-generating power (CGP)-a measure of how much coherence a dynamical process generates on average-emerges as a subpart of the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC), a measure of information scrambling in many-body systems.Via numerical simulations of the (nonintegrable) transverse-field Ising model, we show that the OTOC and CGP capture quantum recurrences in quantitatively the same way.Moreover, using random matrix theory, we analytically characterize the OTOC-CGP connection for the Haar and Gaussian ensembles.In closing, we remark on how our coherence-based signatures of chaos relate to other diagnostics, namely, the Loschmidt echo, OTOC, and the Spectral Form Factor.