Lieb Robinson bounds and out of time order correlators in a long range spin chain

Abstract

Lieb Robinson bounds quantify the maximal speed of information spreading in nonrelativistic quantum systems. We discuss the relation of Lieb Robinson bounds to out of time order correlators, which correspond to different norms of commutators $C(r,t) = [A_i(t),B_{i+r}]$ of local operators. Using an exact Krylov space time evolution technique, we calculate these two different norms of such commutators for the spin 1/2 Heisenberg chain with interactions decaying as a power law $1/r^\alpha$ with distance $r$. Our numerical analysis shows that both norms (operator norm and normalized Frobenius norm) exhibit the same asymptotic behavior, namely a linear growth in time at short times and a power law decay in space at long distance, leading asymptotically to power law light cones for $\alpha<1$ and to linear light cones for $\alpha>1$. The asymptotic form of the tails of $C(r,t)\propto t/r^\alpha$ is described by short time perturbation theory which is valid at short times and long distances.