Universal correlations in chaotic many-body quantum states: Fock-space formulation of Berrys random wave model

Abstract: The apparent randomness of chaotic eigenstates in interacting quantum systems hides subtle correlations dynamically imposed by their finite energy per particle. These correlations are revealed when Berrys approach for chaotic eigenfunctions in single-particle systems is lifted into many-body space. We achieve this by a many-body semiclassics analysis, appropriate for the mesoscopic regime of large but finite number of particles. We then identify the universality of both the cross-correlations and the Gaussian distribution of expansion coefficients as the signatures of chaotic eigenstates. Combined, these two aspects imprint a distinctive backbone to the morphology of eigenstates that we check against extensive quantum simulations. The universality of eigenstate correlations for fixed energy density is then a further signature of many-body quantum chaos that, while consistent with the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, lies beyond random matrix theory.