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arXiv:2604.08662

Nucleation of Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev Clusters in One Spatial Dimension

Hrant Topchyan, Tigran Sedrakyan

Published Apr 9, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

We study how Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) interactions can arise from localized single-particle states on a system that is effectively one dimensional. If a local interaction is projected onto coarse localized orbitals, the resulting couplings do not immediately follow the standard SYK distribution. Instead, they have a finite probability of being exactly zero, a broad non-Gaussian distribution for the nonzero values, and strong correlations coming from the geometry of the localized states. We then show that this changes when each localization volume is resolved into $M>1$ smaller microscopic pieces with random phases. As $M$ increases, the distribution of the nonzero couplings moves toward the complex-Gaussian SYK form. At the same time, the large-$M$ limit is a sparse but asymptotically canonical SYK network: the nonzero couplings create SYK clusters, while the pattern of missing or very weak couplings is still determined by the real-space overlap of the localized orbitals. Finally, we map the interaction tensor to a graph in pair space. This makes it possible to follow the formation, merger, and growth of SYK clusters, which we characterize using connected components and clique/simplex counts. The result is a minimal real-space phenomenological theory of SYK-cluster formation, providing clear experimental criteria.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2604.08662

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We study how Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) interactions can arise from localized single-particle states on a system that is effectively one dimensional. If a local interaction is projected onto coarse localized orbitals, the resulting couplings do not immediately follow the standard SYK distribution. Instead, they have a finite probability of being exactly zero, a broad non-Gaussian distribution for the nonzero values, and strong correlations coming from the geometry of the localized states. We then show that this changes when each localization volume is resolved into M>1M>1M>1 smaller microscopic pieces with random phases. As MMM increases, the distribution of the nonzero couplings moves toward the complex-Gaussian SYK form. At the same time, the large-MMM limit is a sparse but asymptotically canonical SYK network: the nonzero couplings create SYK clusters, while the pattern of missing or very weak couplings is still determined by the real-space overlap of the localized orbitals. Finally, we map the interaction tensor to a graph in pair space. This makes it possible to follow the formation, merger, and growth of SYK clusters, which we characterize using connected components and clique/simplex counts. The result is a minimal real-space phenomenological theory of SYK-cluster formation, providing clear experimental criteria.
Many key features of the higher-dimensional Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model at finite NNN remain unknown. Here we study the SYK chain consisting of $N\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}(N\ensuremath{\ge}2)$ fermions per site with random interactions and hoppings between neighboring sites. In the limit of vanishing SYK interactions, from both supersymmetric field theory analysis and numerical calculations we find that the random hopping model exhibits Anderson localization at finite NNN, irrespective of the parity of NNN. Moreover, the localization length scales linearly with NNN, implying no Anderson localization only at $N=\ensuremath{\infty}$. For finite SYK interaction JJJ, from the exact diagonalization we show that there is a dynamic phase transition between many-body localization and thermal diffusion as JJJ exceeds a critical value Jc{J}_{c}Jc​. In addition, we find that the critical value Jc{J}_{c}Jc​ decreases with the increase of NNN, qualitatively consistent with the analytical result of ${J}_{c}/t\ensuremath{\propto}\frac{1}{{N}^{5/2}logN}$ derived from the weakly interacting limit.
The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model is a model of qqq interacting fermions whose large N limit is dominated by melonic graphs. In this review we first present a diagrammatic proof of that result by direct, combinatorial analysis of its Feynman graphs. Gross and Rosenhaus have then proposed a generalization of the SYK model which involves fermions with different flavors. In terms of Feynman graphs, these flavors can be seen as reminiscent of the colors used in random tensor theory. Applying modern tools from random tensors to such a colored SYK model, all leading and next-to-leading orders diagrams of the 2-point and 4-point functions in the large NNN expansion can be identified. We then study the effect of non-Gaussian average over the random couplings in a complex, colored version of the SYK model. Using a Polchinski-like equation and random tensor Gaussian universality, we show that the effect of this non-Gaussian averaging leads to a modification of the variance of the Gaussian distribution of couplings at leading order in NNN. We then derive the form of the effective action to all orders.
We present a review of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model of compressible quantum many-body systems without quasiparticle excitations, and its connections to various theoretical studies of non-Fermi liquids in condensed matter physics. The review is placed in the context of numerous experimental observations on correlated electron materials. Strong correlations in metals are often associated with their proximity to a Mott transition to an insulator created by the local Coulomb repulsion between the electrons. We explore the phase diagrams of a number of models of such local electronic correlation, employing a dynamical mean field theory in the presence of random spin exchange interactions. Numerical analyses and analytical solutions, using renormalization group methods and expansions in large spin degeneracy, lead to critical regions which display SYK physics. The models studied include the single-band Hubbard model, the ttt-JJJ model and the two-band Kondo-Heisenberg model in the presence of random spin exchange interactions. We also examine non-Fermi liquids obtained by considering each SYK model with random four-fermion interactions to be a multi-orbital atom, with the SYK-atoms arranged in an infinite lattice. We connect to theories of sharp Fermi surfaces without any low-energy quasiparticles in the absence of spatial disorder, obtained by coupling a Fermi liquid to a gapless boson; a systematic large NNN theory of such a critical Fermi surface, with SYK characteristics, is obtained by averaging over an ensemble of theories with random boson-fermion couplings. Finally, we present an overview of the links between the SYK model and quantum gravity and end with an outlook on open questions.
The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, in its simplest form, describes kkk Majorana fermions with random all-to-all four-body interactions. We consider the SYK model in the framework of a many-body Altland-Zirnbauer classification that sees the system as belonging to one of eight (real) symmetry classes depending on the value of kmod8k\phantom{\rule{3.33333pt}{0ex}}mod\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}8kmod8. We show that, depending on the symmetry class, the system may support exact many-body zero modes with the symmetries also dictating whether these may have a nonzero contribution to Majorana fermions, i.e., single-particle weight. These zero modes appear in all but two of the symmetry classes. When present, they leave clear signatures in physical observables that go beyond the threefold (Wigner-Dyson) possibilities for level spacing statistics studied earlier. Signatures we discover include a zero-energy peak or hole in the single-particle spectral function, depending on whether symmetries allow or forbid zero modes to have single-particle weight. The zero modes are also shown to influence the many-body dynamics, where signatures include a nonzero long-time limit for the out-of-time-order correlation function. Furthermore, we show that the extension of the four-body SYK model by quadratic terms can be interpreted as realizing the remaining two complex symmetry classes; we thus demonstrate how the entire tenfold Altland-Zirnbauer classification may emerge in the SYK model.
We study a sparse Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model with NNN Majoranas where only $\ensuremath{\sim}kN$ independent matrix elements are nonzero. We identify a minimum $k\ensuremath{\gtrsim}1$ for quantum chaos to occur by a level statistics analysis. The spectral density in this region, and for a larger kkk, is still given by the Schwarzian prediction of the dense SYK model, though with renormalized parameters. Similar results are obtained for a beyond linear scaling with NNN of the number of nonzero matrix elements. This is a strong indication that this is the minimum connectivity for the sparse SYK model to still have a quantum gravity dual. We also find an intriguing exact relation between the leading correction to moments of the spectral density due to sparsity and the leading 1/d1/d1/d correction of Parisi's U(1) lattice gauge theory in a ddd-dimensional hypercube. In the $k\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1$ limit, different disorder realizations of the sparse SYK model show emergent random matrix statistics that for fixed NNN can be in any universality class of the tenfold way. The agreement with random matrix statistics is restricted to short-range correlations, no more than a few level spacings, in particular in the tail of the spectrum. In addition, emergent discrete global symmetries in most of the disorder realizations for kkk slightly below one give rise to 2m{2}^{m}2m-fold degenerate spectra, with mmm being a positive integer. For k=3/4k=3/4k=3/4, we observe a large number of such emergent global symmetries with a maximum 28{2}^{8}28-fold degenerate spectra for N=26N=26N=26.
We study the effect of the non-Gaussian average over the random couplings in a complex version of the celebrated Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. Using a Polchinski-like equation and random tensor Gaussian universality, we show that the effect of this non-Gaussian averaging leads to a modification of the variance of the Gaussian distribution of couplings at leading order in NNN. We then derive the form of the effective action to all orders. An explicit computation of the modification of the variance in the case of a quartic perturbation is performed for both the complex SYK model mentioned above and the SYK generalization proposed in D. Gross and V. Rosenhaus [J. High Energy Phys. 02 (2017) 093].