The spectral form factor near the Ehrenfest-time

Abstract

We calculate the Ehrenfest-time dependence of the leading quantum correction to the spectral form factor of a ballistic chaotic cavity using periodic orbit theory. For the case of broken time-reversal symmetry, our result differs from that previously obtained using field-theoretic methods [Tian and Larkin, Phys. Rev. B 70, 035305 (2004)]. The discrepancy shows that short-time regularization procedures dramatically affect physics near the Ehrenfest-time.