Dynamical witnesses and universal behavior across chaos and non-ergodicity in the tilted Bose-Hubbard model

Abstract

Quantum chaos in isolated quantum systems is intimately linked to thermalization and the rapid relaxation of observables. Although the spectral properties of the chaotic phase in the tilted Bose-Hubbard model have been well characterized, the corresponding dynamical signatures across the transition to regularity remain less explored . In this work, we investigate this transition by analyzing the time evolution of the survival probability, the single-site entanglement entropy, and the half-chain imbalance. Our results reveal a clear hierarchy in the sensitivity of these observables: the relaxation value of the entanglement entropy varies smoothly as a function of the Hamiltonian parameters across the chaos-regular transition, while the imbalance exhibits a more pronounced distinction. Most notably, the survival probability emerges as the most robust indicator of the transition between chaos and regularity. When appropriately scaled, all three observables converge onto a common behavior as a function of the Hamiltonian parameters for different numbers of sites and bosons,enabling a universal characterization of the transition between chaotic and regular dynamics.