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Does scrambling equal chaos?

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arxiv 1912.11063 v2 pith:TJSRXUFK submitted 2019-12-23 cond-mat.stat-mech cond-mat.dis-nnhep-thnlin.CD

Does scrambling equal chaos?

classification cond-mat.stat-mech cond-mat.dis-nnhep-thnlin.CD
keywords scramblingchaosfixedpointsboundlocalaroundclassically
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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Focusing on semiclassical systems, we show that the parametrically long exponential growth of out-of-time order correlators (OTOCs), also known as scrambling, does not necessitate chaos. Indeed, scrambling can simply result from the presence of unstable fixed points in phase space, even in a classically integrable model. We derive a lower bound on the OTOC Lyapunov exponent which depends only on local properties of such fixed points. We present several models for which this bound is tight, i.e. for which scrambling is dominated by the local dynamics around the fixed points. We propose that the notion of scrambling be distinguished from that of chaos.

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Cited by 4 Pith papers

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