A quantum correction to chaos

Abstract

We use results on Virasoro conformal blocks to study chaotic dynamics in CFT2 at large central charge c. The Lyapunov exponent λL, which is a diagnostic for the early onset of chaos, receives 1/c corrections that may be interpreted as λL=2πβ(1+12c). However, out of time order correlators receive other equally important 1/c suppressed contributions that do not have such a simple interpretation. We revisit the proof of a bound on λL that emerges at large c, focusing on CFT2 and explaining why our results do not conflict with the analysis leading to the bound. We also comment on relationships between chaos, scattering, causality, and bulk locality.