The relation between classical and quantum Lyapunov exponent and the bound on chaos in classically chaotic quantum systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Haneder, Fabian, Caspari, Gerrit, Urbina, Juan Diego, Richter, Klaus
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Haneder, Fabian
Caspari, Gerrit
Urbina, Juan Diego
Richter, Klaus
author_facet Haneder, Fabian
Caspari, Gerrit
Urbina, Juan Diego
Richter, Klaus
contents Out-of-Time-Ordered Commutators (OTOCs), representing a key diagnostic for scrambling as a facet of short-time quantum chaos, have attracted wide-ranging interest, from many-body physics to quantum gravity. By means of a suitable form of the Wigner-Moyal expansion, and invoking ensemble equivalence in statistical physics, we provide a consistent approach to the growth rate of the OTOC for many-body systems with chaotic classical limit where both the classical Lyapunov exponent and the quantum nature of the density of states enter. Applying this construction to quantized high-dimensional hyperbolic motion, i.e., a quantum chaotic system that exhibits gravity-like correlation functions in the late-time regime, we compute the OTOC growth rate $Λ$ as a function of the number of degrees of freedom, $f$, and inverse temperature, $β$. We show that the scaled growth rate, $Λ/f$, can be described by a universal function of $f β$ and displays a cross-over from classical to quantum behavior as we increase $f$ and/or lower the temperature. In the deep quantum regime of infinite $f$, we find maximally fast scrambling in the sense of the Maldacena-Shenker-Stanford bound on chaos. This elucidates the non-perturbative mechanism underlying the saturation of the bound via quantum contributions to the mean density of states, and it provides further support for this dynamical system as a dual to two-dimensional quantum gravity. In this way, we present first evidence of maximally fast scrambling in a quantum chaotic system with a well-defined classical Hamiltonian limit, without invoking any external mechanism such as (disorder) averaging.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_19869
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The relation between classical and quantum Lyapunov exponent and the bound on chaos in classically chaotic quantum systems
Haneder, Fabian
Caspari, Gerrit
Urbina, Juan Diego
Richter, Klaus
Chaotic Dynamics
Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Theory
Quantum Physics
Out-of-Time-Ordered Commutators (OTOCs), representing a key diagnostic for scrambling as a facet of short-time quantum chaos, have attracted wide-ranging interest, from many-body physics to quantum gravity. By means of a suitable form of the Wigner-Moyal expansion, and invoking ensemble equivalence in statistical physics, we provide a consistent approach to the growth rate of the OTOC for many-body systems with chaotic classical limit where both the classical Lyapunov exponent and the quantum nature of the density of states enter. Applying this construction to quantized high-dimensional hyperbolic motion, i.e., a quantum chaotic system that exhibits gravity-like correlation functions in the late-time regime, we compute the OTOC growth rate $Λ$ as a function of the number of degrees of freedom, $f$, and inverse temperature, $β$. We show that the scaled growth rate, $Λ/f$, can be described by a universal function of $f β$ and displays a cross-over from classical to quantum behavior as we increase $f$ and/or lower the temperature. In the deep quantum regime of infinite $f$, we find maximally fast scrambling in the sense of the Maldacena-Shenker-Stanford bound on chaos. This elucidates the non-perturbative mechanism underlying the saturation of the bound via quantum contributions to the mean density of states, and it provides further support for this dynamical system as a dual to two-dimensional quantum gravity. In this way, we present first evidence of maximally fast scrambling in a quantum chaotic system with a well-defined classical Hamiltonian limit, without invoking any external mechanism such as (disorder) averaging.
title The relation between classical and quantum Lyapunov exponent and the bound on chaos in classically chaotic quantum systems
topic Chaotic Dynamics
Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Theory
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.19869