A chaotic lattice field theory in one dimension

TL;DR

This paper develops a novel deterministic skeleton framework for one-dimensional lattice field theories inspired by chaos theory, linking it with solid state and statistical mechanics concepts, and explores the role of spatiotemporal symmetries.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to analyze lattice field theories using periodic spacetime tilings and symmetry group analysis, bridging chaos theory with field theory.

Findings

Partition function determined by spacetime symmetry groups.

Time-reversal viewed as a crystallographic symmetry.

Smallest Bravais cells dominate the theory's predictions.

Abstract

Motivated by Gutzwiller's semiclassical quantization, in which unstable periodic orbits of low-dimensional deterministic dynamics serve as a WKB `skeleton' for chaotic quantum mechanics, we construct the corresponding deterministic skeleton for infinite-dimensional lattice-discretized scalar field theories. In the field-theoretical formulation, there is no evolution in time, and there is no `Lyapunov horizon'; there is only an enumeration of lattice states that contribute to the theory's partition sum, each a global spatiotemporal solution of system's deterministic Euler-Lagrange equations. The reformulation aligns `chaos theory' with the standard solid state, field theory, and statistical mechanics. In a spatiotemporal, crystallographer formulation, the time-periodic orbits of dynamical systems theory are replaced by periodic $d$-dimensional Bravais cell tilings of spacetime, each weighted by the inverse of its instability, its Hill determinant. Hyperbolic shadowing of large cells by smaller ones ensures that the predictions of the theory are dominated by the smallest Bravais cells. The form of the partition function of a given field theory is determined by the group of its spatiotemporal symmetries, that is, by the space group of its lattice discretization, best studied on its reciprocal lattice. Already 1-dimensional lattice discretization is of sufficient interest to be the focus of this paper. In particular, from a spatiotemporal field theory perspective, `time'-reversal is a purely crystallographic notion, a reflection point group, leading to a novel, symmetry quotienting perspective of time-reversible theories and associated topological zeta functions.