Robustness of Kardar-Parisi-Zhang scaling in a classical integrable spin chain with broken integrability

Abstract: Recent investigations have observed superdiffusion in integrable classical and quantum spin chains. An intriguing connection between these spin chains and Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) universality class has emerged. Theoretical developments (e.g. generalized hydrodynamics) have highlighted the role of integrability as well as spin-symmetry in KPZ behaviour. However understanding their precise role on superdiffusive transport still remains a challenging task. The widely used quantum spin chain platform comes with severe numerical limitations. To circumvent this barrier, we focus on a classical integrable spin chain which was shown to have deep analogy with the quantum spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ Heisenberg chain. Remarkably, we find that KPZ behaviour prevails even when one considers integrability-breaking but spin-symmetry preserving terms, strongly indicating that spin-symmetry plays a central role even in the non-perturbative regime. On the other hand, in the non-perturbative regime, we find that energy correlations exhibit clear diffusive behaviour. We also study the classical analog of out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC) and Lyapunov exponents. We find significant presence of chaos for the integrability-broken cases even though KPZ behaviour remains robust. The robustness of KPZ behaviour is demonstrated for a wide class of spin-symmetry preserving integrability-breaking terms.