Short-time Gaussian spin-bath decoherence ($z_N(t)\simeq e^{-2N{g}_{\ast }^2{t}^2/3}$)

For initially equatorial spins and uniform couplings on $[0,g_{\ast }]$, expand $\log \cos (2g_{k}t)=-2g_k^2{t}^2+O(g_k^4{t}^4)$. The strong law of large numbers then gives $\sum g_k^2\simeq N{g}_{\ast }^2/3$. On the scale $t=O((g_{\ast }\sqrt{N}{)}^{-1})$, the total fourth-order remainder tends to zero, giving the Gaussian coherence envelope. This approximation concerns early times and does not remove finite spin-bath coherence recurrence.