Zhuo-Yu Xian

Associate Professor, School of Physics and Astronomy

Research Group: Theoretical Physics

Ph.D. Supervisor

Email: xianzhy5@mail.sysu.edu.cn

 

Biography:

Zhuo-Yu Xian is an Associate Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy. His research focuses on the intersection of gravity, quantum field theory and holography, strongly coupled quantum dynamics, and quantum information. He has published more than 40 research papers, with over 1,500 citations in total, including several papers that have each received more than 100 citations. He has served as a referee for international academic journals including Nature Physics, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review D, and Journal of High Energy Physics (JHEP).

 

Research Areas:

  1. Gravity, Field Theory and Holography: gauge/gravity duality, SYK model/JT gravity, black hole physics
  2. Strongly Coupled Quantum Dynamics: quantum thermalization, quantum chaos, quantum complexity, open quantum systems, non-Hermitian quantum systems
  3. Quantum Information: entanglement structure and dynamics, quantum information spreading, quantum error correction, black hole information problem, tensor network

 

Education:

Sep. 2009 – Jun. 2013, School of Sciences, South China University of Technology, B.Sc. in Physics

Aug. 2013 – Jun. 2018, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ph.D. in Physics

 

Professional Experience:

Jul. 2018 – Sep. 2020, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Postdoctoral Researcher

May 2021 – Sep. 2024, Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, University of Würzburg, Postdoctoral Researcher

Jan. 2025 – Jul. 2026, Department of Physics, Freie Universität Berlin, Postdoctoral Researcher

Jul. 2026 – Present, School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-sen University, Associate Professor

 

Selected Publications:

  1. S. E. Aguilar-Gutierrez*, R. N. Das, J. Erdmenger and Z. Y. Xian*, “Probing the chaos to integrability transition in double-scaled SYK,” JHEP 06, 109 (2026).
  2. P. Basteiro, G. Di Giulio, J. Erdmenger, R. Meyer and Z. Y. Xian*, “Wormhole-induced effective coupling in SYK chains,” JHEP 02, 142 (2025).
  3. J. Liu, R. Meyer and Z. Y. Xian*, “Operator size growth in Lindbladian SYK,” JHEP 08, 092 (2024).
  4. Y. Liu#, S. K. Jian, Y. Ling and Z. Y. Xian*, “Entanglement inside a black hole before the Page time,” JHEP 07, 043 (2024).
  5. J. Erdmenger, S. K. Jian and Z. Y. Xian*, “Universal chaotic dynamics from Krylov space,” JHEP 08, 176 (2023).
  6. Z. Y. Xian#, D. Rodríguez Fernández*, Z. Chen, Y. Liu and R. Meyer, “Electric conductivity in non-Hermitian holography,” SciPost Phys. 16, 004 (2024).
  7. Y. Liu#, Z. Y. Xian*, C. Peng and Y. Ling, “Black holes entangled by radiation,” JHEP 09, 179 (2022).
  8. S. K. Jian, B. Swingle and Z. Y. Xian*, “Complexity growth of operators in the SYK model and in JT gravity,” JHEP 03, 014 (2021).
  9. Z. Y. Xian# and L. Zhao, “Wormholes and the Thermodynamic Arrow of Time,” Phys. Rev. Res. 2, no.4, 043095 (2020).
  10. Y. Ling, Z. Y. Xian* and Z. Zhou, “Holographic Shear Viscosity in Hyperscaling Violating Theories without Translational Invariance,” JHEP 11, 007 (2016).

 

Research Grants as Principal Investigator:

China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Postdoctoral Innovative Talent Support Program, 2018–2020

National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Special Fund for Theoretical Physics, Wormholes and Thermalization, 2019