Fast scrambling without appealing to holographic duality

Abstract

Motivated by the question of whether all fast scramblers are holographically dual to quantum gravity, we study the dynamics of a non-integrable spin chain model composed of two ingredients - a nearest neighbor Ising coupling, and an infinite range $XX$ interaction. Unlike other fast scrambling many-body systems, this model is not known to be dual to a black hole. We quantify the spreading of quantum information using an out-of time-ordered correlator (OTOC), and demonstrate that our model exhibits fast scrambling for a wide parameter regime. Simulation of its quench dynamics finds that the rapid decline of the OTOC is accompanied by a fast growth of the entanglement entropy, as well as a swift change in the magnetization. Finally, potential realizations of our model are proposed in current experimental setups. Our work establishes a promising route to create fast scramblers.