Observation of Universal Quantum Chaos at Shallow Depths

Quantum Physics arXiv:2609.28623 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 23 Sep 2026] Title:Observation of Universal Quantum Chaos at Shallow Depths Authors:Arman Sauliere, Guglielmo Lami, Hugo Lóio, Thomas J. Maldonado, Shashwat Kumar, Pedram Roushan, Andrea De Luca, Jacopo De Nardis View a PDF of the paper titled Observation of Universal Quantum Chaos at Shallow Depths, by Arman Sauliere and 7 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Universal statistical laws are a hallmark of quantum chaos, usually associated with the loss of spatial structure. Here we show, theoretically and experimentally, that universality emerges already at shallow depths in chaotic quantum circuits. We derive universal distributions of output-probability fluctuations and test them on a programmable superconducting processor. Two-dimensional lattices, open one-dimensional chains, and periodic rings exhibit distinct universality classes, retaining signatures of geometry and boundary topology before full random-matrix behavior emerges. Within each class, the distributions depend on only two parameters: an effective many-body Thouless length and the accumulated number of incoherent errors. Extracting these directly from measured bitstring frequencies provides access to scrambling, entanglement growth of the target state, and global fidelity, without reconstructing or classically simulating the implemented circuit. We also identify a noise-driven transition between output statistics retaining system-wide quantum correlations and those reproducible by independent small patches. Our results establish finite-depth universality as a practical tool for probing deep properties of quantum processors. Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) Cite as: arXiv:2609.28623 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2609.28623v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.28623 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Guglielmo Lami [view email] [v1] Wed, 23 Sep 2026 18:00:01 UTC (2,173 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Observation of Universal Quantum Chaos at Shallow Depths, by Arman Sauliere and 7 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-09 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.stat-mech References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)