arXiv subjects

Marine De Clerck

Publications and source records attributed to Marine De Clerck.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A superintegrable quantum field theory

Gérard and Grellier proposed, under the name of the cubic Szegő equation, a remarkable classical field theory on a circle with a quartic Hamiltonian. The Lax integrability structure that emerges from their definition is so constraining that it allows for writing down an explicit general solution for prescribed initial data, and at the same time, the dynamics is highly nontrivial and involves turbulent energy transfer to arbitrarily short wavelengths. The quantum version of the same Hamiltonian is even more striking: not only the Hamiltonian itself, but also its associated conserved hierarchies display purely integer spectra, indicating a structure beyond ordinary quantum integrability. Here, we initiate a systematic study of this quantum system by presenting a mixture of analytic results and empirical observations on the structure of its eigenvalues and eigenvectors, conservation laws, ladder operators, etc.

nlin.SI↗

arXiv2026

Random matrix theory of integrability-to-chaos transition

The statistics of gaps between quantum energy levels is a hallmark criterion in quantum chaos and quantum integrability studies. The relevant distributions corresponding to exactly integrable vs. fully chaotic systems are universal and described by the Poisson vs. Wigner-Dyson curves. In the transitional regime between integrability and chaos, the distributions are much less universal and have not been understood quantitatively until now. We point out that the relevant statistics that controls these distributions is that of the matrix elements of the nonintegrable perturbation Hamiltonian in the energy eigenbasis of the unperturbed integrable system. With this insight, we formulate a simple random matrix ensemble that correctly reproduces the level spacing distributions in a variety of test systems. For the distribution of matrix elements appearing in our construction, we furthermore discover surprising universal features: across a variety of physical systems with diverse degrees of freedom, these distributions are dominated by simple power laws.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2025

Wheeler-DeWitt wavefunctions for 5d BKL dynamics, automorphic L-functions and complex primon gases

The near-singularity BKL dynamics of five dimensional gravity and supergravity (and also an extended four-dimensional supergravity) is known to be given by the billiard problem of a particle within a fundamental domain of the Bianchi groups $PSL(2,{\mathcal O}) \subset PSL(2,\mathbb{C})$, acting on $\mathbb{H}_3$. Here ${\mathcal O}$ are the Gaussian or Eisenstein integers, which define a square or triangular lattice in $\mathbb{C}$. The Wheeler-DeWitt wavefunctions near the singularity are, correspondingly, automorphic Maass forms of $PSL(2,{\mathcal O})$. We show how these wavefunctions are associated to certain $L$-functions evaluated along their critical axis. Each of these $L$-functions admits an Euler product representation over the complex primes ${\mathcal{P}}_{\mathcal O} \subset {\mathcal O}$. From this fact we write the $L$-function as the trace over an auxiliary Hilbert space of charged harmonic oscillators, labeled by the complex primes ${\mathcal{P}}_{\mathcal O}$. In this way we have constructed a 'dual' primon gas partition function for the wavefunction of the universe close to a five dimensional cosmological singularity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Phase-space localization at the lowest Landau level

We consider bosons with weak contact interactions in a harmonic trap and focus on states at the lowest Landau level. Motivated by the known nontrivial phase-space topography of the energy functional of the corresponding Gross-Pitaevskii equation, we explore Husimi distributions of quantum energy eigenstates in the classical phase space of the Schroedinger field. With interactions turned off, the energy levels are highly degenerate and the Husimi distributions do not manifest any particular localization properties. With interactions turned on, the degeneracy is lifted, and a selection of energy levels emerges whose Husimi distributions are localized around low-dimensional surfaces in the phase space.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2024

Mixmaster chaos in an AdS black hole interior

We derive gravitational backgrounds that are asymptotically Anti-de Sitter, have a regular black hole horizon and which deep in the interior exhibit mixmaster chaotic dynamics. The solutions are obtained by coupling gravity with a negative cosmological constant to three massive vector fields, within an Ansatz that reduces to ordinary differential equations. At late interior times the equations are identical to those analysed in depth by Misner and by Belinskii-Khalatnikov-Lifshitz fifty years ago. We review and extend known classical and semiclassical results on the interior chaos, formulated as both a dynamical system of `Kasner eras' and as a hyperbolic billiards problem. The volume of the universe collapses doubly-exponentially over each Kasner era. A remarkable feature is the emergence of a conserved energy, and hence a `time-independent' Hamiltonian, at asymptotically late interior times. A quantisation of this Hamiltonian exhibits arithmetic chaos associated with the principal congruence subgroup $Γ(2)$ of the modular group. We compute a large number of eigenvalues numerically to obtain the spectral form factor. While the spectral statistics is anomalous for a chaotic system, the eigenfunctions themselves display random matrix behaviour.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Integrability and complexity in quantum spin chains

There is a widespread perception that dynamical evolution of integrable systems should be simpler in a quantifiable sense than the evolution of generic systems, though demonstrating this relation between integrability and reduced complexity in practice has remained elusive. We provide a connection of this sort by constructing a specific matrix in terms of the eigenvectors of a given quantum Hamiltonian. The null eigenvalues of this matrix are in one-to-one correspondence with conserved quantities that have simple locality properties (a hallmark of integrability). The typical magnitude of the eigenvalues, on the other hand, controls an explicit bound on Nielsen's complexity of the quantum evolution operator, defined in terms of the same locality specifications. We demonstrate how this connection works in a few concrete examples of quantum spin chains that possess diverse arrays of highly structured conservation laws mandated by integrability.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Definitions of entwinement

Entwinement was first introduced as the CFT dual to extremal, non-minimal geodesics of quotiented AdS$_3$ spaces. It was heuristically meant to capture the entanglement of internal, gauged degrees of freedom, for instance in the symmetric product orbifold CFT of the D1/D5 brane system. The literature now contains different, and sometimes inequivalent, field theory definitions of entwinement. In this paper, we build a discretized lattice model of symmetric product orbifold CFTs, and explicitly construct a gauge-invariant reduced density matrix whose von Neumann entropy agrees with the holographic computation of entwinement. Refining earlier notions, our construction gives meaning to the entwinement of an interval of given size within a long string of specific length. We discuss similarities and differences with previous definitions of entwinement.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Bounds on quantum evolution complexity via lattice cryptography

We address the difference between integrable and chaotic motion in quantum theory as manifested by the complexity of the corresponding evolution operators. Complexity is understood here as the shortest geodesic distance between the time-dependent evolution operator and the origin within the group of unitaries. (An appropriate `complexity metric' must be used that takes into account the relative difficulty of performing `nonlocal' operations that act on many degrees of freedom at once.) While simply formulated and geometrically attractive, this notion of complexity is numerically intractable save for toy models with Hilbert spaces of very low dimensions. To bypass this difficulty, we trade the exact definition in terms of geodesics for an upper bound on complexity, obtained by minimizing the distance over an explicitly prescribed infinite set of curves, rather than over all possible curves. Identifying this upper bound turns out equivalent to the closest vector problem (CVP) previously studied in integer optimization theory, in particular, in relation to lattice-based cryptography. Effective approximate algorithms are hence provided by the existing mathematical considerations, and they can be utilized in our analysis of the upper bounds on quantum evolution complexity. The resulting algorithmically implemented complexity bound systematically assigns lower values to integrable than to chaotic systems, as we demonstrate by explicit numerical work for Hilbert spaces of dimensions up to ~10^4.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

Time-periodicities in holographic CFTs

Dynamics in AdS spacetimes is characterized by various time-periodicities. The most obvious of these is the time-periodic evolution of linearized fields, whose normal frequencies form integer-spaced ladders as a direct consequence of the structure of representations of the conformal group. There are also explicitly known time-periodic phenomena on much longer time scales inversely proportional to the coupling in the weakly nonlinear regime. We ask what would correspond to these long time periodicities in a holographic CFT, provided that such a CFT reproducing the AdS bulk dynamics in the large central charge limit has been found. The answer is a very large family of multiparticle operators whose conformal dimensions form simple ladders with spacing inversely proportional to the central charge. We give an explicit demonstration of these ideas in the context of a toy model holography involving a $ϕ^4$ probe scalar field in AdS, but we expect the applicability of the underlying structure to be much more general.

hep-th↗

arXiv2021

Slow scrambling in extremal BTZ and microstate geometries

Out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) that capture maximally chaotic properties of a black hole are determined by scattering processes near the horizon. This prompts the question to what extent OTOCs display chaotic behaviour in horizonless microstate geometries. This question is complicated by the fact that Lyapunov growth of OTOCs requires nonzero temperature, whereas constructions of microstate geometries have been mostly restricted to extremal black holes. In this paper, we compute OTOCs for a class of extremal black holes, namely maximally rotating BTZ black holes, and show that on average they display "slow scrambling", characterized by cubic (rather than exponential) growth. Superposed on this average power-law growth is a sawtooth pattern, whose steep parts correspond to brief periods of Lyapunov growth associated to the nonzero temperature of the right-moving degrees of freedom in a dual conformal field theory. Next we study the extent to which these OTOCs are modified in certain "superstrata", horizonless microstate geometries corresponding to these black holes. Rather than an infinite throat ending on a horizon, these geometries have a very deep but finite throat ending in a cap. We find that the superstrata display the same slow scrambling as maximally rotating BTZ black holes, except that for large enough time intervals the growth of the OTOC is cut off by effects related to the cap region, some of which we evaluate explicitly.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Time-periodic quantum states of weakly interacting bosons in a harmonic trap

We consider identical quantum bosons with weak contact interactions in a two-dimensional isotropic harmonic trap, and focus on states at the Lowest Landau Level (LLL). At linear order in the coupling parameter $g$, we exploit the rich algebraic structure of the problem to give an explicit construction of a large family of quantum states with energies of the form $E_0+gE_1/4+O(g^2)$, where $E_0$ and $E_1$ are integers. As a result, any superposition of these states evolves periodically with a period of at most $8π/g$ until, at much longer time scales of order $1/g^2$, corrections to the energies of order $g^2$ become important and may upset this perfectly periodic behavior. We further construct coherent-like combinations of these states that naturally connect to classical dynamics in an appropriate regime, and explain how our findings relate to the known time-periodic features of the corresponding weakly nonlinear classical theory. We briefly comment on possible generalizations of our analysis to other numbers of spatial dimensions and other analogous physical systems.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2020

Caustics bounding entanglement wedges

We study the caustics on the boundaries of entanglement wedges in the context of holography in asymptotically AdS$_3$ spacetimes. These entanglement wedges play an important role in our understanding of the emergence of bulk locality. A procedure was proposed by Sanches and Weinberg [arXiv:1703.07780] for identifying boundary operators which are local in the bulk, which also applies to certain regions that lie beyond the reach of HRT surfaces by taking advantage of the lightsheets which bound entanglement wedges. We identify the caustics which terminate these lightsheets in conical deficit and BTZ black hole spacetimes and find that in some examples these caustics lead to a sharp corner in the entanglement wedge. The unexpected shape of these entanglement wedges leads, in those cases, to a breakdown of this procedure. Many of the properties of the rich variety of caustics possible in higher dimensions remains to be explored which, as this work demonstrates, could lead to more unexpected features in the shapes of entanglement wedges.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Lyapunov growth in quantum spin chains

The Ising spin chain with longitudinal and transverse magnetic fields is often used in studies of quantum chaos, displaying both chaotic and integrable regions in its parameter space. However, even at a strongly chaotic point this model does not exhibit Lyapunov growth of the commutator squared of spin operators, as this observable saturates before exponential growth can manifest itself (even in situations where a spatial suppression factor makes the initial commutator small). We extend this model from the spin 1/2 Ising model to higher spins, demonstrate numerically that a window of exponential growth opens up for sufficiently large spin, and extract a quantity which corresponds to a notion of a Lyapunov exponent. In the classical infinite-spin limit, we identify and compute the appropriate classical analogue of the commutator squared, and show that the corresponding exponent agrees with the infinite-spin limit extracted from the quantum spin chain.

hep-th↗

arXiv2020

Superluminal chaos after a quantum quench

Thermal states holographically dual to black holes in Einstein gravity display maximal Lyapunov growth as well as "butterfly effect cones". We study these effects in highly non-equilibrium states, obtained from an initial thermal state by the sudden injection of energy. We do this by computing out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) in BTZ-Vaidya spacetimes, which describe transitions between black holes at different temperatures. If both pairs of boundary operators appearing in the OTOC are inserted before the energy injection, we recover standard results, with butterfly effect cones displaying a light-cone structure. But when one pair of operators is inserted before and the other pair after the energy injection, the Lyapunov growth saturates the chaos bounds set by the local temperatures and the butterfly effect cones "open up", becoming superluminal, albeit in a way that does not violate causality. In the limiting case, in which the initial state is the vacuum, Lyapunov growth only starts after the energy injection. Our computations of the OTOCs are phrased in terms of gravitationally interacting particles, where fields are treated in a geodesic approximation and the eikonal phase shift is expressed in terms of stress tensors and shock waves associated to geodesics.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Energy level splitting for weakly interacting bosons in a harmonic trap

We consider identical quantum bosons with weak contact interactions in a two-dimensional isotropic harmonic trap. When the interactions are turned off, the energy levels are equidistant and highly degenerate. At linear order in the coupling parameter, these degenerate levels split, and we study the patterns of this splitting. It turns out that the problem is mathematically identical to diagonalizing the quantum resonant system of the two-dimensional Gross-Pitaevskii equation, whose classical counterpart has been previously studied in the mathematical literature on turbulence. Our purpose is to explore the implications of the symmetries and energy bounds of this resonant system, previously studied for the classical case, for the quantum level splitting. Simplifications in computing the splitting spectrum numerically result from exploiting the symmetries. The highest energy state emanating from each unperturbed level is explicitly described by our analytics. We furthermore discuss the energy level spacing distributions in the spirit of quantum chaos theory. After separating the eigenvalues into blocks with respect to the known conservation laws, we observe the Wigner-Dyson statistics within specific large blocks, which leaves little room for further integrable structures in the problem beyond the symmetries that are already explicitly known.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗