## Non-unitary dynamics of Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev chain

Chunxiao Liu, Pengfei Zhang, Xiao Chen

SciPost Phys. 10, 048 (2021) · published 23 February 2021

### Abstract

We construct a series of one-dimensional non-unitary dynamics consisting of both unitary and imaginary evolutions based on the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model. Starting from a short-range entangled state, we analyze the entanglement dynamics using the path integral formalism in the large $N$ limit. Among all the results that we obtain, two of them are particularly interesting: (1) By varying the strength of the imaginary evolution, the interacting model exhibits a first order phase transition from the highly entangled volume law phase to an area law phase; (2) The one-dimensional free fermion model displays an extensive critical regime with emergent two-dimensional conformal symmetry.

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