Spectral crossovers in non-Hermitian spin chains: Comparison with random matrix theory

Abstract

We present a systematic investigation of the short-range spectral fluctuation properties of three non-Hermitian spin-chain Hamiltonians using complex spacing ratios (CSRs). Specifically, we focus on the non-Hermitian variants of the standard one-dimensional anisotropic XY model having intrinsic rotation-time ($\mathcal{RT}$) symmetry that has been explored analytically by Zhang and Song [Phys. Rev. A 87, 012114 (2013)]. The corresponding Hermitian counterpart is also exactly solvable and has been widely employed as a toy model in several condensed matter physics problems. We show that the presence of a random field along the $x$ direction together with the one along the $z$ direction facilitates integrability and $\mathcal{RT}$-symmetry breaking, leading to the emergence of quantum chaotic behavior. This is evidenced by a spectral crossover closely resembling the transition from Poissonian to Ginibre unitary ensemble (GinUE) statistics of random matrix theory. Additionally, we consider two phenomenological random matrix models in this paper to examine 1D Poisson to GinUE and 2D Poisson to GinUE crossovers and the associated signatures in CSRs. Here 1D and 2D Poisson correspond to real and complex uncorrelated levels, respectively. These crossovers reasonably capture spectral fluctuations observed in the spin-chain systems within a certain range of parameters.