Circuits as a simple platform for the emergence of hydrodynamics in deterministic chaotic many-body systems
The emergence of hydrodynamics is one of the deepest phenomena in many-body systems. Arguably, the hydrodynamic equations are also the most important tools for predicting large-scale behaviour. Understanding how such equations emerge from microscopic deterministic dynamics is a century-old problem, despite recent progress in fine-tuned integrable systems. Due to the universality of hydrodynamics, the specific microscopic implementation should not matter. Here, we show that classical deterministic circuits provide a minimal, exact, and efficient platform that admits non-trivial hydrodynamic behaviour for deterministic but chaotic systems. By developing new techniques and focusing on 1D circuits as a proof of concept, we obtain the characteristic dynamics, including relaxation to Gibbs states, exact Euler equations, shocks, diffusion, and exact KPZ super-diffusion. Our methods can be easily generalised to higher dimensions or quantum circuits.
Authors
- Juan P. Garrahan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0185-3924)
- Benjamin Doyon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5258-5544)
- Friedrich Hübner
- Sunwoo Kim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2952-2289)
Institutions
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- King's College London (GB)
- King's College School (GB)
- Equilibrium Research (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2026-06-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-74457-3
- Primary Topic
- Quantum chaos and dynamical systems
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- King’s College London
- Leverhulme Trust
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council