The Late-time Ramp of the Double-Scaled SYK Model from the large-$n$ tail of Cactus Diagram

Abstract

We derive the late-time ramp of the finite-temperature spectral form factor in the double-scaled SYK model directly from cactus diagrams, which is introduced as a multi-trace generalization of chord diagram in Ref \cite{Berkooz:2020fvm}. Although single-trace observables admit an exact chord-diagram description, multi-trace sums are obstructed by the chord-intersection weights $q_{IJ}$, which cannot be averaged independently to $q$. Our key idea is that the non-analytic contribution responsible for the ramp is controlled by the large-order tail of the Cactus-diagram expansion and is insensitive to finite changes in its low-order analytic terms. Decomposing the contribution with $n$-cross-trace-pairings Cactus diagram into two buds $B_n$ and a kernel $\mathcal K_n$, we determine their large-$n$ asymptotics with fixed $0\leq q<1$ and resum the resulting tail. For $β_L=β+it$ and $β_R=β-it$, we obtain \begin{equation*} Z_s^{\mathrm{sing}}(β+it,β-it) =s_p c_N \frac{|t|}{2π} \int_{E_{min}}^{E_{max}} e^{-2βE} dE+O(1), \qquad s_p=\begin{cases}2,&4\mid p,\\1,&4\nmid p.\end{cases} \end{equation*} This result reproduces the linear ramp predicted by random matrix theory, including its temperature dependence and symmetry factor, and agrees with the semiclassical predictions. It provides a direct microscopic origin of the ramp within the general $q$-deformed quantum algebra. While the plateau lies beyond the scope of the present analysis and calculation.