Onset of universality in the dynamical mixing of a pure state

We study the time dynamics of random density matrices generated by evolving the same pure state using a Gaussian orthogonal ensemble (GOE) of Hamiltonians. We show that the spectral statistics of the resulting mixed state is well described by random matrix theory (RMT) and undergoes a crossover from the Gaussian orthogonal ensemble to the Gaussian unitary ensemble (GUE) for short and large times, respectively. Using a semi-analytical treatment relying on a power series of the density matrix as a function of time, we find that the crossover occurs in a characteristic time that scales as the inverse of the dimension. The RMT results are contrasted with a paradigmatic model of many-body localization in the chaotic regime, where the GUE statistics is reached at large times, while for short times the statistics strongly depends on the peculiarity of the considered subspace.

Isospectral Twirling and Quantum Chaos

We show that the most important measures of quantum chaos, such as frame potentials, scrambling, Loschmidt echo and out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs), can be described by the unified framework of the isospectral twirling, namely the Haar average of a k-fold unitary channel. We show that such measures can then always be cast in the form of an expectation value of the isospectral twirling. In literature, quantum chaos is investigated sometimes through the spectrum and some other times through the eigenvectors of the Hamiltonian generating the dynamics. We show that thanks to this technique, we can interpolate smoothly between integrable Hamiltonians and quantum chaotic Hamiltonians. The isospectral twirling of Hamiltonians with eigenvector stabilizer states does not possess chaotic features, unlike those Hamiltonians whose eigenvectors are taken from the Haar measure. As an example, OTOCs obtained with Clifford resources decay to higher values compared with universal resources. By doping Hamiltonians with non-Clifford resources, we show a crossover in the OTOC behavior between a class of integrable models and quantum chaos. Moreover, exploiting random matrix theory, we show that these measures of quantum chaos clearly distinguish the finite time behavior of probes to quantum chaos corresponding to chaotic spectra given by the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble (GUE) from the integrable spectra given by Poisson distribution and the Gaussian Diagonal Ensemble (GDE).

Global and local scaling limits for the β = 2 Stieltjes–Wigert random matrix ensemble

The eigenvalue probability density function (PDF) for the Gaussian unitary ensemble has a well-known analogy with the Boltzmann factor for a classical log-gas with pair potential [Formula: see text], confined by a one-body harmonic potential. A generalization is to replace the pair potential by [Formula: see text]. The resulting PDF first appeared in the statistical physics literature in relation to non-intersecting Brownian walkers, equally spaced at time [Formula: see text], and subsequently in the study of quantum many-body systems of the Calogero–Sutherland type, and also in Chern–Simons field theory. It is an example of a determinantal point process with correlation kernel based on the Stieltjes–Wigert polynomials. We take up the problem of determining the moments of this ensemble, and find an exact expression in terms of a particular little [Formula: see text]-Jacobi polynomial. From their large [Formula: see text] form, the global density can be computed. Previous work has evaluated the edge scaling limit of the correlation kernel in terms of the Ramanujan ([Formula: see text]-Airy) function. We show how in a particular [Formula: see text] scaling limit, this reduces to the Airy kernel.

The universe from a single particle

We explore the emergence of many-body physics from quantum mechanics via spontaneous symmetry breaking. To this end, we study potentials which are functionals on the space of Hamiltonians enjoying an unstable critical point corresponding to a random quantum mechanical system (the Gaussian unitary ensemble), but also less symmetrical local minima corresponding to interacting systems at the level of operators.

Simple Maps, Hurwitz Numbers, and Topological Recursion

We introduce the notion of fully simple maps, which are maps with non self-intersecting disjoint boundaries. In contrast, maps where such a restriction is not imposed are called ordinary. We study in detail the combinatorics of fully simple maps with topology of a disk or a cylinder. We show that the generating series of simple disks is given by the functional inversion of the generating series of ordinary disks. We also obtain an elegant formula for cylinders. These relations reproduce the relation between moments and (higher order) free cumulants established by Collins et al. [22], and implement the symplectic transformation $$x \leftrightarrow y$$ x ↔ y on the spectral curve in the context of topological recursion. We conjecture that the generating series of fully simple maps are computed by the topological recursion after exchange of x and y. We propose an argument to prove this statement conditionally to a mild version of the symplectic invariance for the 1-hermitian matrix model, which is believed to be true but has not been proved yet. Our conjecture can be considered as a combinatorial interpretation of the property of symplectic invariance of the topological recursion. Our argument relies on an (unconditional) matrix model interpretation of fully simple maps, via the formal hermitian matrix model with external field. We also deduce a universal relation between generating series of fully simple maps and of ordinary maps, which involves double monotone Hurwitz numbers. In particular, (ordinary) maps without internal faces—which are generated by the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble—and with boundary perimeters $$(\lambda _1,\ldots ,\lambda _n)$$ ( λ 1 , … , λ n ) are strictly monotone double Hurwitz numbers with ramifications $$\lambda $$ λ above $$\infty $$ ∞ and $$(2,\ldots ,2)$$ ( 2 , … , 2 ) above 0. Combining with a recent result of Dubrovin et al. [24], this implies an ELSV-like formula for these Hurwitz numbers.

Freeness over the diagonal and outliers detection in deformed random matrices with a variance profile

We study the eigenvalue distribution of a Gaussian unitary ensemble (GUE) matrix with a variance profile that is perturbed by an additive random matrix that may possess spikes. Our approach is guided by Voiculescu’s notion of freeness with amalgamation over the diagonal and by the notion of deterministic equivalent. This allows to derive a fixed point equation to approximate the spectral distribution of certain deformed GUE matrices with a variance profile and to characterize the location of potential outliers in such models in a non-asymptotic setting. We also consider the singular values distribution of a rectangular Gaussian random matrix with a variance profile in a similar setting of additive perturbation. We discuss the application of this approach to the study of low-rank matrix denoising models in the presence of heteroscedastic noise, that is when the amount of variance in the observed data matrix may change from entry to entry. Numerical experiments are used to illustrate our results. Deformed random matrix, Variance profile, Outlier detection, Free probability, Freeness with amalgamation, Operator-valued Stieltjes transform, Gaussian spiked model, Low-rank model. 2000 Math Subject Classification: 62G05, 62H12.

Moments of the ground state density for the d-dimensional Fermi gas in an harmonic trap

We consider properties of the ground state density for the [Formula: see text]-dimensional Fermi gas in an harmonic trap. Previous work has shown that the [Formula: see text]-dimensional Fourier transform has a very simple functional form. It is shown that this fact can be used to deduce that the density itself satisfies a third-order linear differential equation, previously known in the literature but from other considerations. It is shown too how this implies a closed form expression for the [Formula: see text]th non-negative integer moments of the density, and a second-order recurrence. Both can be extended to general Re[Formula: see text]. The moments, and the smoothed density, permit expansions in [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text], with [Formula: see text] denoting the shell label. The moment expansion substituted in the second-order recurrence gives a generalization of the Harer–Zagier recurrence, satisfied by the coefficients of the [Formula: see text] expansion of the moments of the spectral density for the Gaussian unitary ensemble in random matrix theory.

Spectral distributions of periodic random matrix ensembles

Koloğlu, Kopp and Miller compute the limiting spectral distribution of a certain class of real random matrix ensembles, known as [Formula: see text]-block circulant ensembles, and discover that it is exactly equal to the eigenvalue distribution of an [Formula: see text] Gaussian unitary ensemble. We give a simpler proof that under very general conditions which subsume the cases studied by Koloğlu–Kopp–Miller, real-symmetric ensembles with periodic diagonals always have limiting spectral distribution equal to the eigenvalue distribution of a finite Hermitian ensemble with Gaussian entries which is a ‘complex version’ of a [Formula: see text] submatrix of the ensemble. We also prove an essentially algebraic relation between certain periodic finite Hermitian ensembles with Gaussian entries, and the previous result may be seen as an asymptotic version of this for real-symmetric ensembles. The proofs show that this general correspondence between periodic random matrix ensembles and finite complex Hermitian ensembles is elementary and combinatorial in nature.

Additive matrix convolutions of Pólya ensembles and polynomial ensembles

Recently, subclasses of polynomial ensembles for additive and multiplicative matrix convolutions were identified which were called Pólya ensembles (or polynomial ensembles of derivative type). Those ensembles are closed under the respective convolutions and, thus, build a semi-group when adding by hand a unit element. They even have a semi-group action on the polynomial ensembles. Moreover, in several works transformations of the bi-orthogonal functions and kernels of a given polynomial ensemble were derived when performing an additive or multiplicative matrix convolution with particular Pólya ensembles. For the multiplicative matrix convolution on the complex square matrices the transformations were even done for general Pólya ensembles. In the present work, we generalize these results to the additive convolution on Hermitian matrices, on Hermitian anti-symmetric matrices, on Hermitian anti-self-dual matrices and on rectangular complex matrices. For this purpose, we derive the bi-orthogonal functions and the corresponding kernel for a general Pólya ensemble which was not done before. With the help of these results, we find transformation formulas for the convolution with a fixed matrix or a random matrix drawn from a general polynomial ensemble. As an example, we consider Pólya ensembles with an associated weight which is a Pólya frequency function of infinite order. But we also explicitly evaluate the Gaussian unitary ensemble as well as the complex Laguerre (aka Wishart, Ginibre or chiral Gaussian unitary) ensemble. All results hold for finite matrix dimension. Furthermore, we derive a recursive relation between Toeplitz determinants which appears as a by-product of our results.