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arXiv · 1710.03012

On thermalization in the SYK and supersymmetric SYK models

Nicholas Hunter-Jones·Junyu Liu·Yehao Zhou
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Abstract

The eigenstate thermalization hypothesis is a compelling conjecture which strives to explain the apparent thermal behavior of generic observables in closed quantum systems. Although we are far from a complete analytic understanding, quantum chaos is often seen as a strong indication that the ansatz holds true. In this paper, we address the thermalization of energy eigenstates in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model, a maximally chaotic model of strongly-interacting Majorana fermions. We numerically investigate eigenstate thermalization for specific few-body operators in the original SYK model as well as its $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetric extension and find evidence that these models satisfy ETH. We discuss the implications of ETH for a gravitational dual and the quantum information-theoretic properties of SYK it suggests.

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Nicholas Hunter-Jones, Junyu Liu, Yehao Zhou. 2017-10-09. On thermalization in the SYK and supersymmetric SYK models. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep02(2018)142

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