Perturbative OTOC and Quantum Chaos in Harmonic Oscillators : Second Quantization Method

Abstract

In this paper, the out-of-time-order correlators (OTOC) in quantum harmonic oscillators are calculated analytically by second quantization method in perturbative approximation. We consider the coupled harmonic oscillators and anharmonic (quartic) oscillators. The analytic formulas of microcanonical OTOC in the leading order of interaction are obtained. From these results we clearly see that the interactions can enhance the correlation to very large values over time and is proportional to the energy level. The growth of OTOC signatures the quantum chaos therein. The microcanonical OTOC which is an increasing oscillation becomes a simple increasing function in thermal OTOC after sum over all energy level, as different level oscillates with different frequency. The property that, at late time stage OTOC saturates to a constant value, however, does not show in the first-order perturbation studied in this paper.