Tailoring Quantum Chaos With Continuous Quantum Measurements

We investigate the role of quantum monitoring in the dynamical manifestations of Hamiltonian quantum chaos. Specifically, we analyze the generalized spectral form factor, defined as the survival probability of a coherent Gibbs state under continuous energy measurements. We show that quantum monitoring can tailor the signatures of quantum chaos in the dynamics, such as the extension of the ramp in the spectral form factor, by varying the measurement strength and detection efficiency. In particular, a typical quantum trajectory obtained by monitoring with unit efficiency exhibits enhanced quantum chaos relative to the average dynamics and to unitary evolution without measurements. Our results hold for systems across symmetry classes and for other diagnostics of quantum chaos, such as out-of-time-order correlators and Liouvillian spectral statistics.