Higher-dimensional chaotic features and random matrix signatures following a local quench

Abstract

We study the multidimensional erratic structure of correlation functions produced by local operator quenches in finite-volume free massive scalar field theory in dimensions 2 and 3. The basic observable is the subtracted equal-time two-point function in the locally excited state and its spatiotemporal patterns of extrema. We analyze these extrema by the multidimensional diagnostics recently introduced for chaotic scattering amplitudes and related problems: all-pair distance distributions, nearest-neighbor spacings, greedy-path spacing ratios, and the extrema form factor. For the $1+1$-dimensional local quench we find that, in the regime of small Euclidean smearing, the fitted extremum statistics move close to the $β=1$ random-matrix benchmark, while increasing the smearing scale softens the effective repulsion and moves the distributions away from the GOE-like value. For the $2+1$-dimensional local quench we find that the nearest-neighbor statistics of the refined extrema are close to, or above, the $β=1$ benchmark, and the greedy-path ratio statistics are described by even larger effective $β$ values. Finally we studied the all-pair extrema spatial form factor and found that, in the one-, two-, and three-dimensional cases, its main structure is controlled by the corresponding uniform interval, rectangle, or cuboid geometry of the extrema cloud and found the dip-ram-plateau structure in the last two cases. Thus the form factor provides a complementary global diagnostic of how the extrema fill their effective metric support, while the genuinely nontrivial local and mesoscopic organization is carried by the nearest-neighbor and greedy-path statistics.