Quantum chaos, delocalization, and entanglement in disordered Heisenberg models

Statistics of phase space localization measures and quantum chaos in the kicked top model

Quantum chaos plays a significant role in understanding several important questions of recent theoretical and experimental studies. Here, by focusing on the localization properties of eigenstates in phase space (by means of Husimi functions), we explore the characterizations of quantum chaos using the statistics of the localization measures, that is the inverse participation ratio and the Wehrl entropy. We consider the paradigmatic kicked top model, which shows a transition to chaos with increasing the kicking strength. We demonstrate that the distributions of the localization measures exhibit a drastic change as the system undergoes the crossover from integrability to chaos. We also show how to identify the signatures of quantum chaos from the central moments of the distributions of localization measures. Moreover, we find that the localization measures in the fully chaotic regime apparently universally exhibit the beta distribution, in agreement with previous studies in the billiard systems and the Dicke model. Our results contribute to a further understanding of quantum chaos and shed light on the usefulness of the statistics of phase space localization measures in diagnosing the presence of quantum chaos, as well as the localization properties of eigenstates in quantum chaotic systems.

Exploring Integrability-Chaos Transition with a Sequence of Independent Perturbations

A gas of interacting particles is a paradigmatic example of chaotic systems. It is shown here that, even if all but one particle are fixed in generic positions, the excited states of the moving particle are chaotic. They are characterized by the number of principal components (NPC)-the number of integrable system eigenstates involved into the nonintegrable one, which increases linearly with the number of strong scatterers. This rule is a particular case of the general effect of an additional perturbation on the system chaotic properties. The perturbation independence criteria supposing the system chaoticity increase are derived here as well. The effect can be observed in experiments with photons or cold atoms as the decay of observable fluctuation variance, which is inversely proportional to NPC and, therefore, to the number of scatterers. This decay indicates that the eigenstate thermalization is approached. The results are confirmed by numerical calculations for a harmonic waveguide with zero-range scatterers along its axis.

Entanglement production by interaction quenches of quantum chaotic subsystems

The entanglement production in bipartite quantum systems is studied for initially unentangled product eigenstates of the subsystems, which are assumed to be quantum chaotic. Based on a perturbative computation of the Schmidt eigenvalues of the reduced density matrix, explicit expressions for the time-dependence of entanglement entropies, including the von Neumann entropy, are given. An appropriate rescaling of time and the entropies by their saturation values leads a universal curve, independent of the interaction. The extension to the nonperturbative regime is performed using a recursively embedded perturbation theory to produce the full transition and the saturation values. The analytical results are found to be in good agreement with numerical results for random matrix computations and a dynamical system given by a pair of coupled kicked rotors.

Dynamical manifestations of quantum chaos: correlation hole and bulge

A main feature of a chaotic quantum system is a rigid spectrum where the levels do not cross. We discuss how the presence of level repulsion in lattice many-body quantum systems can be detected from the analysis of their time evolution instead of their energy spectra. This approach is advantageous to experiments that deal with dynamics, but have limited or no direct access to spectroscopy. Dynamical manifestations of avoided crossings occur at long times. They correspond to a drop, referred to as correlation hole, below the asymptotic value of the survival probability and to a bulge above the saturation point of the von Neumann entanglement entropy and the Shannon information entropy. By contrast, the evolution of these quantities at shorter times reflects the level of delocalization of the initial state, but not necessarily a rigid spectrum. The correlation hole is a general indicator of the integrable-chaos transition in disordered and clean models and as such can be used to detect the transition to the many-body localized phase in disordered interacting systems.This article is part of the themed issue 'Breakdown of ergodicity in quantum systems: from solids to synthetic matter'.

Signatures of bifurcation on quantum correlations: Case of the quantum kicked top

Quantum correlations reflect the quantumness of a system and are useful resources for quantum information and computational processes. Measures of quantum correlations do not have a classical analog and yet are influenced by classical dynamics. In this work, by modeling the quantum kicked top as a multiqubit system, the effect of classical bifurcations on measures of quantum correlations such as the quantum discord, geometric discord, and Meyer and Wallach Q measure is studied. The quantum correlation measures change rapidly in the vicinity of a classical bifurcation point. If the classical system is largely chaotic, time averages of the correlation measures are in good agreement with the values obtained by considering the appropriate random matrix ensembles. The quantum correlations scale with the total spin of the system, representing its semiclassical limit. In the vicinity of trivial fixed points of the kicked top, the scaling function decays as a power law. In the chaotic limit, for large total spin, quantum correlations saturate to a constant, which we obtain analytically, based on random matrix theory, for the Q measure. We also suggest that it can have experimental consequences.

Quantum discord length is enhanced while entanglement length is not by introducing disorder in a spin chain

Classical correlation functions of ground states typically decay exponentially and polynomially, respectively, for gapped and gapless short-range quantum spin systems. In such systems, entanglement decays exponentially even at the quantum critical points. However, quantum discord, an information-theoretic quantum correlation measure, survives long lattice distances. We investigate the effects of quenched disorder on quantum correlation lengths of quenched averaged entanglement and quantum discord, in the anisotropic XY and XYZ spin glass and random field chains. We find that there is virtually neither reduction nor enhancement in entanglement length while quantum discord length increases significantly with the introduction of the quenched disorder.

Chaos and statistical relaxation in quantum systems of interacting particles

We study the transition to chaos and the emergence of statistical relaxation in isolated dynamical quantum systems of interacting particles. Our approach is based on the concept of delocalization of the eigenstates in the energy shell, controlled by the Gaussian form of the strength function. We show that, although the fluctuations of the energy levels in integrable and nonintegrable systems are different, the global properties of the eigenstates are quite similar, provided the interaction between particles exceeds some critical value. In this case, the statistical relaxation of the systems is comparable, irrespective of whether or not they are integrable. The numerical data for the quench dynamics manifest excellent agreement with analytical predictions of the theory developed for systems of two-body interactions with a completely random character.

Onset of chaos and relaxation in isolated systems of interacting spins: energy shell approach

We study the onset of chaos and statistical relaxation in two isolated dynamical quantum systems of interacting spins 1/2, one of which is integrable and the other chaotic. Our approach to identifying the emergence of chaos is based on the level of delocalization of the eigenstates with respect to the energy shell, the latter being determined by the interaction strength between particles or quasiparticles. We also discuss how the onset of chaos may be anticipated by a careful analysis of the Hamiltonian matrices, even before diagonalization. We find that despite differences between the two models, their relaxation processes following a quench are very similar and can be described analytically with a theory previously developed for systems with two-body random interactions. Our results imply that global features of statistical relaxation depend on the degree of spread of the eigenstates within the energy shell and may happen to both integrable and nonintegrable systems.

Domain wall dynamics in integrable and chaotic spin-1/2 chains

We study the time evolution of correlation functions, spin current, and local magnetization in an isolated spin-1/2 chain initially prepared in a sharp domain wall state. The results are compared with the level of spatial delocalization of the eigenstates of the system which is measured using the inverse participation ratio. Both integrable and nonintegrable regimes are considered. Nonintegrability is introduced to the integrable Hamiltonian with nearest-neighbor couplings by adding a single-site impurity field or by adding next-nearest-neighbor couplings. A monotonic correspondence between the enhancement of the level of delocalization, spin current, and magnetization dynamics occurs in the integrable domain. This correspondence is, however, lost for chaotic models with weak Ising interactions.

Transitions in eigenvalue and wavefunction structure in (1+2) -body random matrix ensembles with spin

Finite interacting Fermi systems with a mean-field and a chaos generating two-body interaction are modeled by one plus two-body embedded Gaussian orthogonal ensemble of random matrices with spin degree of freedom [called EGOE(1+2)-s]. Numerical calculations are used to demonstrate that, as lambda , the strength of the interaction (measured in the units of the average spacing of the single-particle levels defining the mean-field), increases, generically there is Poisson to GOE transition in level fluctuations, Breit-Wigner to Gaussian transition in strength functions (also called local density of states) and also a duality region where information entropy will be the same in both the mean-field and interaction defined basis. Spin dependence of the transition points lambda_{c} , lambdaF, and lambdad , respectively, is described using the propagator for the spectral variances and the formula for the propagator is derived. We further establish that the duality region corresponds to a region of thermalization. For this purpose we compared the single-particle entropy defined by the occupancies of the single-particle orbitals with thermodynamic entropy and information entropy for various lambda values and they are very close to each other at lambda=lambdad.

Onset of quantum chaos in one-dimensional bosonic and fermionic systems and its relation to thermalization

By means of full exact diagonalization, we study level statistics and the structure of the eigenvectors of one-dimensional gapless bosonic and fermionic systems across the transition from integrability to quantum chaos. These systems are integrable in the presence of only nearest-neighbor terms, whereas the addition of next-nearest-neighbor hopping and interaction may lead to the onset of chaos. We show that the strength of the next-nearest-neighbor terms required to observe clear signatures of nonintegrability is inversely proportional to the system size. Interestingly, the transition to chaos is also seen to depend on particle statistics, with bosons responding first to the integrability breaking terms. In addition, we discuss the use of delocalization measures as main indicators for the crossover from integrability to chaos and the consequent viability of quantum thermalization in isolated systems.

Entanglement and the generation of random states in the quantum chaotic dynamics of kicked coupled tops

We study the dynamical generation of entanglement as a signature of chaos in a system of periodically kicked coupled tops, where chaos and entanglement arise from the same physical mechanism. The long-time-averaged entanglement as a function of the position of an initially localized wave packet very closely correlates with the classical phase space surface of section--it is nearly uniform in the chaotic sea, and reproduces the detailed structure of the regular islands. The uniform value in the chaotic sea is explained by the random state conjecture. As classically chaotic dynamics take localized distributions in phase space to random distributions, quantized versions take localized coherent states to pseudorandom states in Hilbert space. Such random states are highly entangled, with an average value near that of the maximally entangled state. For a map with global chaos, we derive that value based on analytic results for the entropy of random states. For a mixed phase space, we use the Percival conjecture to identify a "chaotic subspace" of the Hilbert space. The typical entanglement, averaged over the unitarily invariant Haar measure in this subspace, agrees with the long-time-averaged entanglement for initial states in the chaotic sea. In all cases the dynamically generated entanglement is that of a random complex vector, even though the system is time-reversal invariant, and the Floquet operator is a member of the circular orthogonal ensemble.

Transport control in low-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg systems

We analyze transport of local magnetization and develop schemes to control transport behavior in finite spin-1/2 Heisenberg chains and spin-1/2 Heisenberg two-leg ladders at zero temperature. By adjusting parameters in the Hamiltonians, these quantum systems may show both integrable and chaotic limits. We provide examples of chaotic systems leading to diffusive and to ballistic transport. In addition, methods of coherent quantum control to induce a transition from diffusive to ballistic transport are proposed.