Arbitrary relaxation rate under non-Hermitian matrix iterations

Abstract

We study the exponential relaxation of observables, propagated with a non-Hermitian transfer matrix, an example being out-of-time-ordered correlations (OTOC) in brickwall (BW) random quantum circuits. Until a time that scales as the system size, the exponential decay of observables is not usually determined by the second largest eigenvalue of the transfer matrix, as one can naively expect, but it is in general slower -- this slower decay rate was dubbed "phantom eigenvalue". Generally, this slower decay is given by the largest value in the pseudospecturm of the transfer matrix, however we show that the decay rate can be an arbitrary value between the second largest eigenvalue and the largest value in the pseudospectrum. This arbitrary decay can be observed for example in the propagation of OTOC in periodic boundary conditions BW circuits. To explore this phenomenon, we study a 1D biased random walk coupled to two reservoirs at the edges, and prove that this simple system also exhibits phantom eigenvalues.