From locality to irregularity: Introducing local quenches in massive scalar field theory

TL;DR

This paper explores the dynamics of local quenches in massive scalar field theories across various dimensions, extending known results from conformal field theories and revealing complex, chaotic behaviors in non-conformal settings.

Contribution

It introduces the study of local quenches in non-conformal, massive scalar field theories, generalizing two-dimensional CFT results to arbitrary dimensions and analyzing their complex evolution.

Findings

Derived energy and charge density dynamics post-quench.

Identified different evolution regimes based on mass and regularization.

Observed chaotic and localization patterns in massive scalar theories.

Abstract

In this paper, we initiate the study of operator local quenches in non-conformal field theories. We consider the dynamics of excited local states in massive scalar field theory in an arbitrary spacetime dimension and generalize the well-known two-dimensional CFT results. We derive the energy density, $U(1)$-charge density and $\phi^2(x)$-condensate post-quench dynamics, and identify different regimes of their evolution depending on the values of the field mass and the quench regularization parameter. For local quenches in higher-dimensional free massless scalar theories, we reproduce the structure of the available holographic results. We also investigate the local quenches in massive scalar field theory on a cylinder and show that they cause an erratic and chaotic-like evolution of observables with a complicated localization/delocalization pattern.