Quantum chaos, pole-skipping and hydrodynamics in a holographic system with chiral anomaly

TL;DR

This paper explores how quantum chaos and pole-skipping phenomena in a holographic system with chiral anomaly reveal macroscopic signatures of microscopic anomalies, linking hydrodynamics, chaos, and anomaly effects.

Contribution

It demonstrates that chiral anomalies can be detected through quantum chaos indicators like butterfly velocities and pole-skipping points in a holographic model with a Chern-Simons term.

Findings

Butterfly velocities differ along and opposite to magnetic field B.

Pole-skipping points coincide with chaos points, indicating hydrodynamic origins.

Universal sum of wavenumbers at pole-skipping points reflects chiral anomaly effects.

Abstract

It is well-known that chiral anomaly can be macroscopically detected through the energy and charge transport, due to the chiral magnetic effect. On the other hand, in a holographic many body system, the chaotic modes might be only associated with the energy conservation. This suggests that, perhaps, one can detect microscopic anomalies through the diagnosis of quantum chaos in such systems. To investigate this idea, we consider a magnetized brane in AdS space time with a Chern-Simons coupling in the bulk. By studying the shock wave geometry in this background, we first compute the corresponding butterfly velocities, in the presence of an external magnetic field $B$, in $\mu\ll T$ and $ B \ll T^2$ limit. We find that the butterfly propagation in the direction of $B$ has a different velocity than in the opposite direction. The splitting of butterfly velocities confirms the idea that chiral anomaly can be macroscopically manifested via quantum chaos. We then show that the pole-skipping points of energy density Green's function of the boundary theory coincide precisely with the chaos points. This might be regarded as the hydrodynamic origin of quantum chaos in an anomalous system. Additionally, by studying the near horizon dynamics of a scalar field on the above background, we find the spectrum of pole-skipping points associated with the two-point function of dual boundary operator. We find that the sum of wavenumbers corresponding to pole-skipping points at a specific Matsubara frequency is a universal quantity, which is independent of the scaling dimension of the dual boundary operator. We then show that this quantity follows from a closed formula and can be regarded as another macroscopic manifestation of the chiral anomaly.