Dynamics and Charge Fluctuations in Large-q Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev Lattices

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical framework to study charge fluctuations and dynamics in large-q SYK lattice models, revealing that local charge densities remain nearly constant and that the system does not thermalize instantaneously, regardless of lattice dimensionality.

Contribution

It introduces a general analytical approach to analyze charge dynamics in large-q SYK lattices with arbitrary couplings, showing the invariance of certain charge properties and the impossibility of instantaneous thermalization.

Findings

Charge densities form a closed set of equations.

Charge fluctuations are suppressed as q increases.

Instantaneous thermalization is not possible in connected SYK lattices.

Abstract

It is known that the large-$q$ complex Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) dot thermalizes instantaneously under rather general dynamical protocols. We consider a lattice of such dots coupled together, allowing for $r/2$ body hopping of particles between nearest neighbors. We develop a rather general analytical framework to study the dynamics to leading order in $1/q$ on such a lattice, allowing for arbitrary time dependent couplings, hence general dynamical protocols. We find that the physics of the diffusive case $r>2$ is effectively the same as the kinetic case $r=2$, assuming $r=\mathcal{O}(q^0)$. Remarkably, we find that the local charge densities $\mathcal{Q}_i$ form a closed set of equations. They however only show fluctuations of the order $\mathcal{O}(\mathcal{Q}_i/q)$, hence remaining constant in the limit $q\rightarrow \infty$. Despite this effective lack of charge dynamics, the dots do not in fact behave as isolated lattice sites which would thermalize instantaneously. Indeed, we show via a proof by contradiction that such instantaneously thermalize is not generally possible for a connected lattice. Importantly, the results are shown to be independent of the dimensionality of the lattice.