On replica-nondiagonal large N saddles in the SYK model

Abstract

We study the saddle points of the SYK model, formulated in terms of the replica bilocal fields, beyond the replica-diagonal assumption. We find a family of replica-nondiagonal saddle points in the IR limit, where the saddle point equations are separable. We use the Parisi ansatz to find the replicanondiagonal solutions and take the replica limit. The free energy on these solutions is computed, and we find that some of the replica-nondiagonal saddles have lower free energy than the replica-diagonal saddle point.