From Chaos to Integrability in Double Scaled SYK via a Chord Path Integral

Abstract

We study thermodynamic phase transitions between integrable and chaotic dynamics. We do so by analyzing models that interpolate between the chaotic double scaled Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) and the integrable $p$-spin systems, in a limit where they are described by chord diagrams. We develop a path integral formalism by coarse graining over the diagrams, which we use to argue that the system has two distinct phases: one is continuously connected to the chaotic system, and the other to the integrable. They are separated by a line of first order transition that ends at some finite temperature.