Hierarchy of Information Scrambling, Thermalization, and Hydrodynamic Flow in Graphene

TL;DR

This paper investigates the rate of information scrambling in graphene due to electron interactions, revealing its relation to thermalization and hydrodynamics, and introduces a quantum kinetic theory for quantum chaos.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the information scrambling rate in graphene and introduces a Boltzmann-like quantum kinetic theory for quantum chaos.

Findings

Scrambling rate behaves similarly to transport and energy relaxation rates at strong coupling.

At weak coupling, scrambling is related to dephasing and single particle relaxation.

Scrambling rate is larger than rates relevant for hydrodynamic and thermal processes.

Abstract

We determine the information scrambling rate $\lambda_{L}$ due to electron-electron Coulomb interaction in graphene. $\lambda_{L}$ characterizes the growth of chaos and has been argued to give information about the thermalization and hydrodynamic transport coefficients of a many-body system. We demonstrate that $\lambda_{L}$ behaves for strong coupling similar to transport and energy relaxation rates. A weak coupling analysis, however, reveals that scrambling is related to dephasing or single particle relaxation. Furthermore, $\lambda_{L}$ is found to be parametrically larger than the collision rate relevant for hydrodynamic processes, such as electrical conduction or viscous flow, and the rate of energy relaxation, relevant for thermalization. Thus, while scrambling is obviously necessary for thermalization and quantum transport, it does generically not set the time scale for these processes. In addition we derive a quantum kinetic theory for information scrambling that resembles the celebrated Boltzmann equation and offers a physically transparent insight into quantum chaos in many-body systems.