Out-of-Time-Order Correlation as a Witness for Topological Phase Transitions

TL;DR

This paper introduces an experimentally accessible out-of-time-order correlation (OTOC) as a universal witness for detecting topological phase transitions, robust across various models and disorder conditions.

Contribution

It proposes a novel OTOC-based method to identify topological phase transitions, applicable to systems with different symmetries and disorder, enhancing experimental detection capabilities.

Findings

OTOC dynamics differ in trivial and topological phases

OTOC undergoes a zero-to-finite-value transition at critical points

Method is robust to initial states, operators, and disorder

Abstract

We propose a physical witness for dynamically detecting topological phase transitions (TPTs) via an experimentally observable out-of-time-order correlation (OTOC). The distinguishable OTOC dynamics appears in the topological trivial and non-trivial phases due to the topological locality. In the long-time limit, the OTOC undergoes a {\it zero-to-finite-value transition} at the critical point of the TPTs. This transition is robust to the choices of the initial state of the system and the used operators in OTOC. The proposed OTOC witness can be applied into the systems with and without chiral symmetry, e.g., the lattices described by the SSH model, Creutz model, and Haldane model. Moreover, our proposal, as a physical witness in real space, is still valid even in the presence of disorder. Our work fundamentally offers a new prospect of exploring topological physics with quantum correlations.