From locality to irregularity: Introducing local quenches in massive scalar field theory

Abstract

In this paper, we initiate the study of operator local quenches in non-conformal field theories. We consider the dynamics of excited local states in massive scalar field theory in an arbitrary spacetime dimension and generalize the well-known two-dimensional CFT results. We derive the energy density, $U(1)$-charge density and ${\varphi }^2(x)$-condensate post-quench dynamics, and identify different regimes of their evolution depending on the values of the field mass and the quench regularization parameter. For local quenches in higher-dimensional free massless scalar theories, we reproduce the structure of the available holographic results. We also investigate the local quenches in massive scalar field theory on a cylinder and show that they cause an erratic and chaotic-like evolution of observables with a complicated localization/delocalization pattern.

v1: 46 pages, 13 figures; v2: 46 pages, 13 figures, references added, typos corrected; v3: 48 pages, 16 figures, details added, references added, typos corrected

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Entanglement and geometry from subalgebras of the Virasoro algebra
• Local quench within the Keldysh technique
• From Confinement to Chaos in AdS/CFT Correspondence via Non-equilibrium Local States