Floquet engineered inhomogeneous quantum chaos in critical systems
Phys. Rev. B 112, 104317 – Published 22 September, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/cn3z-vfgr
Abstract
We study universal chaotic dynamics of a large class of periodically driven critical systems described by spatially inhomogeneous conformal field theories. By employing an effective curved spacetime approach, we show that the onset of quantum chaotic correlations, captured by the Lyapunov exponent of out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs), is set by the effective temperature of emergent Floquet horizons. Furthermore, scrambling of quantum information is shown to be strongly inhomogeneous, leading to transitions from chaotic to nonchaotic regimes by tuning driving parameters. We finally use our framework to propose a concrete protocol to simulate and measure OTOCs in quantum simulators, by designing an efficient stroboscopic backward time evolution.
