  A pair of identical Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) models with bilinear coupling
forms a quantum dual of a traversable wormhole, with a ground state close to
the so called thermofield double state. We use adiabaticity arguments and
numerical simulations to show that the character of the ground state remains
unchanged when interaction strengths in the two SYK models become imbalanced.
Analysis of thermodynamic and dynamical quantities highlights the key
signatures of the wormhole phase in the imbalanced case. Further adiabatic
evolution naturally leads to the 'maximally imbalanced' limit where fermions in
a single SYK model are each coupled to a free Majorana zero mode. This limit is
interesting because it could be more easily realized using various setups
proposed to implement the SYK model in a laboratory. We find that this limiting
case is marginal in that it retains some of the characteristic signatures of
the wormhole physics, such as the spectral gap and revival dynamics, but lacks
others so that it likely does not represent the full-fledged wormhole dual. We
discuss how this scenario could be implemented in the proposed realization of
the SYK physics in quantum wires of finite length coupled to a disordered
quantum dot.
