Out-of-time ordered correlators in kicked coupled tops: Information scrambling in mixed phase space and the role of conserved quantities

Abstract

We study operator growth in a bipartite kicked coupled tops (KCTs) system using out-of-time ordered correlators (OTOCs), which quantify “information scrambling” due to chaotic dynamics and serve as a quantum analog of classical Lyapunov exponents. In the KCT system, chaos arises from the hyper-fine coupling between the spins. Due to a conservation law, the system’s dynamics decompose into distinct invariant subspaces. Focusing initially on the largest subspace, we numerically verify that the OTOC growth rate aligns well with the classical Lyapunov exponent for fully chaotic dynamics. While previous studies have largely focused on scrambling in fully chaotic dynamics, works on mixed-phase space scrambling are sparse. We explore scrambling behavior in both mixed-phase space and globally chaotic dynamics. In the mixed-phase space, we use Percival’s conjecture to partition the eigenstates of the Floquet map into “regular” and “chaotic.” Using these states as the initial states, we examine how their mean phase space locations affect the growth and saturation of the OTOCs. Beyond the largest subspace, we study the OTOCs across the entire system, including all other smaller subspaces. For certain initial operators, we analytically derive the OTOC saturation using random matrix theory (RMT). When the initial operators are chosen randomly from the unitarily invariant random matrix ensembles, the averaged OTOC relates to the linear entanglement entropy of the Floquet operator, as found in earlier works. For the diagonal Gaussian initial operators, we provide a simple expression for the OTOC.