Imbalanced coupled Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model

The quantum dual of an eternal traversable wormhole in AdS₂ can be described by a thermo-field-double (TFD) state of two finite-temperature Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) systems. A bilinear coupling between these two identical SYK models was shown to prepare this TFD state as a ground state [1,2]. Although this motivates realizing a quantum version of the wormhole, the identical nature of two SYK models puts a stringent condition on experimental platforms. In this talk, I will discuss a one-parameter variant of the Maldacena-Qi model that consists of two SYK systems with different strengths of interaction. Our results show that for a range of the variation parameter, the ground state, along with other key characteristics of the wormhole phase, remains intact. The relevance of this model to a previous proposal using Majorana zero modes [3] will also be discussed. [1] J Maldacena, X-L Qi, arXiv:1804.00491 (2018). [2] S Sahoo, É L-Hurtubise, S Plugge, M Franz, Phys. Rev. Research 2, 043049 (2020). [3] A Chew, A Essin, J Alicea, Phys. Rev. B 96, 121119 (2017).