Dresden 2026 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 32: Many-body Systems: Equilibration, Chaos, and Localization (joint session DY/TT)

DY 32.12: Talk

Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 12:30–12:45, HÜL/S186

Scrambling and Scarring in Topological Materials — •Nicholas Sedlmayr, Dominik Szpara, and Szczepan Głodzik — Institute of Physics, M. Curie-Skłodowska University, 20-031 Lublin, Poland

Topological insulators and superconductors have recently attracted considerable attention, and many different theoretical tools have been used to gain insight into their properties. Here we investigate how perturbations can spread through exemplary one-dimensional topological insulators and superconductors using out-of-time ordered correlators. Out-of-time ordered correlators are often used to consider how information becomes scrambled during quantum dynamics. The wavefront of the out-of-time ordered correlator can be ballistic regardless of the underlying system dynamics, and here we confirm that for topological free fermion systems the wavefront spreads linearly at a characteristic butterfly velocity. We pay special attention to the topologically protected edge states, finding that information can become trapped in the edge states and essentially decoupled from the bulk, surviving for relatively long times - a form of scarring. We further investigate what happens due to the chiral and helical edge modes of two dimensional topological models. The information travels around the edge, carried by the edge mode, but again is not scrambled over very long time scales.

Keywords: Scrambling; Topological Insulator; Edge States