Randomness and chaos in qubit models

Abstract

We introduce randomness into a class of integrable models and study the spectral form factor as a diagnostic to distinguish between randomness and chaos. Spectral form factors exhibit a characteristic dip-ramp-plateau behavior in the N>2 SYK2 model at high temperatures that is absent in the N=2 SYK2 model. Our results suggest that this dip-ramp-plateau behavior implies the existence of random eigenvectors in a quantum many-body system. To further support this observation, we examine the Gaussian random transverse Ising model and obtain consistent results without suffering from small N issues. Finally, we demonstrate numerically that expectation values of observables computed in a random quantum state at late times are equivalent to the expectation values computed in the thermal ensemble in a Gaussian random one-qubit model. Keywords: Randomness, Chaos, Spectral From Factor, Thermal Ensemble