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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Disconnecting a traversable wormhole: Universal quench dynamics in random spin models

Tian-Gang Zhou1, Lei Pan1, Yu Chen2, Pengfei Zhang3,4,*, and Hui Zhai1,†

  • 1Institute for Advanced Study, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
  • 2Graduate School of China Academy of Engineering Physics, Beijing 100193, China
  • 3Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
  • 4Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

  • *pengfeizhang.physics@gmail.com
  • †hzhai@tsinghua.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Research 3, L022024 – Published 21 June, 2021

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.L022024

Abstract

Understanding strongly interacting quantum matter and quantum gravity are both important open issues in theoretical physics, and the holographic duality between quantum field theory and gravity theory nicely brings these two topics together. Nevertheless, direct connections between gravity physics and experimental observations in quantum matter are still rare. Here we utilize the gravity physics picture to understand quench dynamics experimentally observed in a class of random spin models realized in several different quantum systems, where the dynamics of magnetization are measured after the external polarization field is suddenly turned off. Two universal features of the magnetization dynamics, namely, a slow decay described by a stretched exponential function and an oscillatory behavior, are respectively found in different parameter regimes across different systems. This paper addresses the issues of generic conditions under which these two universal features can occur, and we find that a natural answer to this question emerges in the gravity picture. By the holographic duality bridged by a model proposed by Maldacena and Qi, the quench dynamics after suddenly turning off the external polarization field is mapped to disconnecting an eternal traversable wormhole. Our studies show that insight from gravity physics can help unifying different experiments in quantum systems.

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Phys. Rev. Research 3, L022024– Published 21 June, 2021
  • Received 1 December 2020
  • Accepted 7 June 2021
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