The out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) is central to the understanding of information scrambling in quantum many-body systems. In this work, we show that the OTOC in a quantum many-body system close to its critical point obeys dynamical scaling laws which are specified by a few universal critical exponents of the quantum critical point. Such scaling laws of the OTOC imply a universal form for the butterfly velocity of a chaotic system in the quantum critical region and allow one to locate the quantum critical point and extract all universal critical exponents of the quantum phase transitions. We numerically confirm the universality of the butterfly velocity in a chaotic model, namely the transverse axial next-nearest-neighbor Ising model, and show the feasibility of extracting the critical properties of quantum phase transitions from OTOC using the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick (LMG) model.
We study the behavior of the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) in a non-Hermitian quantum Ising system. We show that the OTOC can diagnose not only the ground state exceptional point, which hosts the Yang-Lee edge singularity, but also the \textit{dynamical} exceptional point at the excited state. We find that the evolution of the OTOC in the parity-time symmetric phase can be divided into two stages: in the short-time stage, the OTOC oscillates periodically, and when the parameter is near the ground state exceptional point, this oscillation behavior can be described by both the scaling th…
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) are a quantifier of quantum information scrambling and quantum chaos. We propose an efficient quantum algorithm to measure OTOCs that provides an exponential speed-up over the best known classical algorithm provided the OTOC operator to be estimated admits an efficient gate decomposition. We also discuss a scheme to obtain information about the eigenvalue spectrum and the spectral density of OTOCs.
A time-reversed dynamics unwinds information scrambling, which is induced during the time-forward evolution with a complex Hamiltonian. We show that if the scrambled information is, in addition, partially damaged by a local measurement, then such a damage can still be treated by application of the time-reversed protocol. This information recovery is described by the long-time saturation value of a certain out-of-time-ordered correlator of local variables. We also propose a simple test that distinguishes between quantum and reversible classical chaotic information scrambling.
It has been conjectured by Maldacena, Shenker, and Stanford [J. High Energy Phys.~08 (2016) 106] that the exponential growth rate of the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) $F(t)$ has a universal upper bound $2πk_B T/\hbar$. Here we introduce a one-parameter family of out-of-time-ordered correlators $F_γ(t)$ ($0\leqγ\leq 1$), which has as good properties as $F(t)$ as a regularization of the out-of-time-ordered part of the squared commutator $\langle [A(t), B(0)]^2\rangle$ that diagnoses quantum many-body chaos, and coincides with $F(t)$ at $γ=1/2$. We rigorously prove that if $F_γ(t)$ shows …
Chaotic dynamics in quantum many-body systems scrambles local information so that at late times it can no longer be accessed locally. This is reflected quantitatively in the out-of-time-ordered correlator of local operators, which is expected to decay to zero with time. However, for systems of finite size, out-of-time-ordered correlators do not decay exactly to zero and in this paper we show that the residual value can provide useful insights into the chaotic dynamics. When energy is conserved, the late-time saturation value of the out-of-time-ordered correlator of generic traceless local oper…
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität zu Köln（科隆大学理论物理研究所）；Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems（马克斯·普朗克复杂系统物理研究所）；School of Physics, Trinity College Dublin（都柏林三一学院物理学院）
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) have been proposed as a tool to witness quantum information scrambling in many-body system dynamics. These correlators can be understood as averages over nonclassical multi-time quasi-probability distributions (QPDs). These QPDs have more information, and their nonclassical features witness quantum information scrambling in a more nuanced way. However, their high dimensionality and nonclassicality make QPDs challenging to measure experimentally. We focus on the topical case of a many-qubit system and show how to obtain such a QPD in the laboratory using …
We investigate the dynamics of the out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) via a non-Hermitian extension of the quantum kicked rotor model, where the kicking potential satisfies $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetry. The spontaneous $\cal{PT}$-symmetry breaking emerges when the strength of the imaginary part of the kicking potential exceeds a threshold value. We find, both analytically and numerically, that in the broken phase of $\cal{PT}$ symmetry, the OTOCs rapidly saturate with time evolution. Interestingly, the late-time saturation value scales as a pow-law in the system size. The mechanism of such sca…
This letter reports the findings of the late time behavior of the out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) via a quantum kicked rotor model with $\cal{PT}$-symmetric driving potential. An analytical expression of the OTOCs' quadratic growth with time is yielded as $C(t)=G(K)t^2$. Interestingly, the growth rate $G$ features a quantized response to the increase of the kick strength $K$, which indicates the chaos-assisted quantization in the OTOCs' dynamics. The physics behind this is the quantized absorption of energy from the non-Hermitian driving potential. This discovery and the ensuing establ…
Out-of time-ordered correlators (OTOC) have recently attracted significant attention from the physics of many-body systems, to quantum black-holes, with an exponential growth of the OTOC indicating quantum chaos. Here we consider OTOC in the context of coined discrete quantum walks, a very well studied model of quantization of classical random walks with applications to quantum algorithms. Three separate cases of operators, variously localized in the coin and walker spaces, are discussed in this context and it is found that the approximated behavior of the OTOCs is well described by simple alg…
The out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) diagnoses quantum chaos and the scrambling of quantum information via the spread of entanglement. The OTOC encodes forward and reverse evolutions and has deep connections with the flow of time. So do fluctuation relations such as Jarzynski's Equality, derived in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. I unite these two powerful, seemingly disparate tools by deriving a Jarzynski-like equality for the OTOC. The equality's left-hand side equals the OTOC. The right-hand side suggests a protocol for measuring the OTOC indirectly. The protocol is platform-nons…
The out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) is a measure of quantum chaos that is being vigorously investigated. Analytically accessible simple models that have long been studied in other contexts could provide insights into such measures. This paper investigates the OTOC in the quantum bakers map which is the quantum version of a simple and exactly solvable model of deterministic chaos that caricatures the action of kneading dough. Exact solutions based on the semiquantum approximation are derived that tracks very well the correlators till the Ehrenfest time. The growth occurs at the exponentia…
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) are an effective tool in characterizing black hole chaos, many-body thermalization and quantum dynamics instability. Previous research findings have shown that the OTOCs' exponential growth (EG) marks the limit for quantum systems. However, we report in this letter a periodically-modulated nonlinear Schrödinger system, in which we interestingly find a novel way of information scrambling: super-EG. We show that the quantum OTOCs' growth, which stems from the quantum chaotic dynamics, will increase in a super-exponential way. We also find that in the class…
Two properties are needed for a classical system to be chaotic: exponential stretching and mixing. Recently, out-of-time order correlators were proposed as a measure of chaos in a wide range of physical systems. While most of the attention has previously been devoted to the short time stretching aspect of chaos, characterized by the Lyapunov exponent, we show for quantum maps that the out-of-time correlator approaches its stationary value exponentially with a rate determined by the Ruelle-Pollicot resonances. This property constitutes clear evidence of the dual role of the underlying classical…
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) are a key observable in a wide range of interconnected fields including many-body physics, quantum information science, and quantum gravity. Measuring OTOCs using near-term quantum simulators will extend our ability to explore fundamental aspects of these fields and the subtle connections between them. Here, we demonstrate an experimental method to measure OTOCs at finite temperatures and use the method to study their temperature dependence. These measurements are performed on a digital quantum computer running a simulation of the transverse field Ising …
The out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) and the Loschmidt echo are two measures that are now widely being explored to characterize sensitivity to perturbations and information scrambling in complex quantum systems. Studying few qubits systems collectively modelled as a kicked top, we solve exactly the three- and four- qubit cases, giving analytical results for the OTOC and the Loschmidt echo. While we may not expect such few-body systems to display semiclassical features, we find that there are clear signatures of the exponential growth of OTOC even in systems with as low as 4 qubits in app…
As a measure of information scrambling and quantum chaos, out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) plays more and more important role in many different fields of physics. In this work, we verify that the OTOC can also be used as a prober of the excited-state quantum phase transition (ESQPT) in a quantum many body system. By using the exact diagonalization method, we examine the dynamical properties of OTOC in the Lipkin model, which undergoes an ESQPT. We demonstrate that the OTOC exhibits a remarkable distinct evolution behaviors in different phases of ESQPT. Therefore, the presence of an ESQPT …
We establish that there are properties of quantum many-body dynamics which are efficiently learnable if we are given access to out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs), but which require exponentially many operations in the system size if we can only measure time-ordered correlators. This implies that any experimental protocol which reconstructs OTOCs solely from time-ordered correlators must be, in certain cases, exponentially inefficient. Our proofs leverage and generalize recent techniques in quantum learning theory. Along the way, we elucidate a general definition of time-ordered versus out-o…
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) have been suggested as a means to study quantum chaotic behavior in various systems. In this work, I calculate OTOCs for the quantum mechanical anharmonic oscillator with quartic potential, which is classically integrable and has a Poisson-like energy-level distribution. For low temperature, OTOCs are periodic in time, similar to results for the harmonic oscillator and the particle in a box. For high temperature, OTOCs exhibit a rapid (but power-like) rise at early times, followed by saturation consistent with $2\langle x^2\rangle_T \langle p^2\rangle_T$…
We study numerically and analytically the time dependence and saturation of out-of-time ordered correlators (OTOC) in chaotic few-body quantum-mechanical systems: quantum Henon-Heiles system (weakly chaotic), BMN matrix quantum mechanics (strongly chaotic) and Gaussian random matrix ensembles. The growth pattern of quantum-mechanical OTOC is complex and nonuniversal, with no clear exponential regime at relevant timescales in any of the examples studied (which is not in contradiction to the exponential growth found in the literature for many-body systems, i.e. fields). On the other hand, the pl…
In the present work we propose that two-time correlations of Majorana edge localized fermions constitute a novel and versatile toolbox for assessing the topological phases of 1D open lattices. Using analytical and numerical calculations on the Kitaev model, we uncover universal relationships between the decay of the short-time correlations and a particular family of out-of-time-ordered correlators, which provide direct experimental alternatives to the quantitative analysis of the system regime, either normal or topological. Furthermore we show that the saturation of two-time correlations posse…
The out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOC) have been established as a fundamental concept for quantifying quantum information scrambling and diagnosing quantum chaotic behavior. Recently, it was theoretically proposed that the OTOC can be used as an order parameter to dynamically detect both equilibrium quantum phase transitions (EQPTs) and dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) in one-dimensional many-body systems. Here we report the first experimental observation of EQPTs and DQPTs in a quantum spin chain via quench dynamics of OTOC on a nuclear magnetic resonance quantum simulator. We …
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) have received considerable recent attention as qualitative witnesses of information scrambling in many-body quantum systems. Theoretical discussions of OTOCs typically focus on closed systems, raising the question of their suitability as scrambling witnesses in realistic open systems. We demonstrate empirically that the nonclassical negativity of the quasiprobability distribution (QPD) behind the OTOC is a more sensitive witness for scrambling than the OTOC itself. Nonclassical features of the QPD evolve with timescales that are robust with respect to de…
The out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) have been proposed and widely used recently as a tool to define and describe many-body quantum chaos. Here, we develop the Keldysh non-linear sigma model technique to calculate these correlators in interacting disordered metals. In particular, we focus on the regularized and unregularized OTOCs, defined as $Tr[\sqrtρ A(t) \sqrtρ A^\dagger(t)]$ and $Tr[ρA(t)A^\dagger(t)]$ respectively (where $A(t)$ is the anti-commutator of fermion field operators and $ρ$ is the thermal density matrix). The calculation of the rate of OTOCs' exponential growth is remin…
Out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs) are of crucial importance for studying a wide variety of fundamental phenomena in quantum physics, ranging from information scrambling to quantum chaos and many-body localization. However, apart from a few special cases, they are notoriously difficult to compute even numerically due to the exponential complexity of generic quantum many-body systems. In this paper, we introduce a machine learning approach to OTOCs based on the restricted-Boltzmann-machine architecture, which features wide applicability and could work for arbitrary-dimensional systems with…
Interacting many-body quantum systems show a rich array of physical phenomena and dynamical properties, but are notoriously difficult to study: they are challenging analytically and exponentially difficult to simulate on classical computers. Small-scale quantum information processors hold the promise to efficiently emulate these systems, but characterizing their dynamics is experimentally challenging, requiring probes beyond simple correlation functions and multi-body tomographic methods. Here, we demonstrate the measurement of out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs), one of the most effective…
While classical chaos has been successfully characterized with consistent theories and intuitive techniques, such as with the use of Lyapunov exponents, quantum chaos is still poorly understood, as well as its relation with multi-partite entanglement and information scrambling. We consider a benchmark system, the kicked top model, which displays chaotic behaviour in the classical version, and proceed to characterize the quantum case with a thorough diagnosis of the growth of chaos and entanglement in time. As a novel tool for the characterization of quantum chaos, we introduce for this scope t…
The machinery of computing vacuum expectation values of a time-ordered sequence of position operators of the simple harmonic oscillator is already well established. It rests on a Wick theorem, which enables one to decompose such a quantity in terms of products of \emph{pairwise contractions}, which are vacuum expectation values of a time-ordered sequence of position operators taken two at a time. This result naturally leads to a diagrammatic approach of computing such correlators, and is already well known in the form of Feynman diagrams. We generalise this setup to encompass expectation value…
We probe the contraction from $2d$ relativistic CFTs to theories with Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) symmetries, or equivalently Conformal Carroll symmetries, using diagnostics of quantum chaos. Starting from an Ultrarelativistic limit on a relativistic scalar field theory and following through at the quantum level using an oscillator representation of states, one can show the CFT$_2$ vacuum evolves smoothly into a BMS$_3$ vacuum in the form of a squeezed state. Computing circuit complexity of this transmutation using the covariance matrix approach shows clear divergences when the BMS point is hit …
We argue that two distinct probes of quantum chaos, i.e., the growth of noncommutativity of two unequal-time operators and the degree of irreversibility in a time-reversal test, are equivalent for initially localized states. We confirm this for interacting nonintegrable many-body systems and a quantum kicked rotor. Our results show that three-point out-of-time-ordered correlators dominate the growth of the squared commutator for initially localized states, in stark contrast to four-point out-of-time-ordered correlators that have extensively been studied for thermal initial states.
Information scrambling, which is the spread of local information through a system's many-body degrees of freedom, is an intrinsic feature of many-body dynamics. In quantum systems, the out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) quantifies information scrambling. Motivated by experiments that have measured the OTOC at infinite temperature and a theory proposal to measure the OTOC at finite temperature using the thermofield double state, we describe a protocol to measure the OTOC in a finite temperature spin chain that is realized approximately as one half of the ground state of two moderately-sized …
We characterize a quantum neural network's error in terms of the network's scrambling properties via the out-of-time-ordered correlator. A network can be trained by optimizing either a loss function or a cost function. We show that, with some probability, both functions can be bounded by out-of-time-ordered correlators. The gradients of these functions can be bounded by the gradient of the out-of-time-ordered correlator, demonstrating that the network's scrambling ability governs its trainability. Our results pave the way for the exploration of quantum chaos in quantum neural networks.
Information scrambling and the butterfly effect in chaotic quantum systems can be diagnosed by out-of-time-ordered (OTO) commutators through an exponential growth and large late time value. We show that the latter feature shows up in a strongly correlated many-body system, a Luttinger liquid, whose density fluctuations we study at long and short wavelengths, both in equilibrium and after a quantum quench. We find rich behaviour combining robustly universal and non-universal features. The OTO commutators display temperature and initial state independent behaviour, and grow as $t^2$ for short ti…
Out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) have been proposed as a probe of chaos in quantum mechanics, on the basis of their short-time exponential growth found in some particular set-ups. However, it has been seen that this behavior is not universal. Therefore, we query other quantum chaos manifestations arising from the OTOCs and we thus study their long-time behavior in systems of completely different nature: quantum maps, which are the simplest chaotic one-body system and spin chains, which are many-body systems without a classical limit. It is shown that studying the long-time regime of the O…
Two topics, evolving rapidly in separate fields, were combined recently: The out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) signals quantum-information scrambling in many-body systems. The Kirkwood-Dirac (KD) quasiprobability represents operators in quantum optics. The OTOC has been shown to equal a moment of a summed quasiprobability. That quasiprobability, we argue, is an extension of the KD distribution. We explore the quasiprobability's structure from experimental, numerical, and theoretical perspectives. First, we simplify and analyze the weak-measurement and interference protocols for measuring t…
The scrambling of quantum information in closed many-body systems, as measured by out-of-time-ordered correlation functions (OTOCs), has lately received considerable attention. Recently, a hydrodynamical description of OTOCs has emerged from considering random local circuits, aspects of which are conjectured to be universal to ergodic many-body systems, even without randomness. Here we extend this approach to systems with locally conserved quantities (e.g., energy). We do this by considering local random unitary circuits with a conserved U$(1)$ charge and argue, with numerical and analytical e…
The Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model describes a strange metal that shows peculiar non-Fermi liquid properties without quasiparticles. It exhibits a maximally chaotic behavior characterized by out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs), and is expected to be a holographic dual to black holes. Recently, a striking similarity between the SYK model and the Hund-coupling induced spin-freezing crossover in multi-orbital Hubbard models has been pointed out. To further explore this connection, we study OTOCs for fermionic Hubbard models, which are prototypical models for strongly correlated electrons in so…
It was proposed recently that the out-of-time-ordered four-point correlator (OTOC) may serve as a useful characteristic of quantum-chaotic behavior, because in the semi-classical limit, $\hbar \to 0$, its rate of exponential growth resembles the classical Lyapunov exponent. Here, we calculate the four-point correlator, $C(t)$, for the classical and quantum kicked rotor -- a textbook driven chaotic system -- and compare its growth rate at initial times with the standard definition of the classical Lyapunov exponent. Using both quantum and classical arguments, we show that the OTOC's growth rate…
The out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) is used to study the quantum phase transitions (QPTs) between the normal phase and the superradiant phase in the Rabi and few-body Dicke models with large frequency ratio of theatomic level splitting to the single-mode electromagnetic radiation field frequency. The focus is on the OTOC thermally averaged with infinite temperature, which is an experimentally feasible quantity. It is shown that thecritical points can be identified by long-time averaging of the OTOC via observing its local minimum behavior. More importantly, the scaling laws of the OTOC f…
We study out of time ordered correlators (OTOC) in a free fermionic model with a quasi-periodic potential. This model is equivalent to the Aubry-André model and features a phase transition from an extended phase to a localized phase at a non-zero value of the strength of the quasi-periodic potential. We investigate five different time-regimes of interest for out of time ordered correlators; early, wavefront, $x=v_Bt$, late time equilibration and infinite time. For the early time regime we observe a power law for all potential strengths. For the time regime preceding the wavefront we confirm a …
In this paper we investigate measures of chaos and entanglement in rational conformal field theories in 1+1 dimensions. First, we derive a universal formula for the late time value of the out-of-time-ordered correlators for this class of theories. Our universal result can be expressed as a particular combination of the modular S-matrix elements known as the anyon monodromy scalar. Next, in the explicit setup of a $SU(N)_k$ Wess-Zumino-Witten model, we compare the late time behavior of the out-of-time-ordered correlators and the purity. Interestingly, in the large-c limit, the purity grows loga…
