Dependence of Krylov complexity saturation on the initial operator and state

Abstract

Krylov complexity, a quantum complexity measure which uniquely characterizes the spread of a quantum state or an operator, has recently been studied in the context of quantum chaos. However, the definitiveness of this measure as a chaos quantifier is in question in light of its strong dependence on the initial condition. This article clarifies the connection between the Krylov complexity dynamics and the initial operator or state. We find that the saturation value of Krylov complexity depends monotonically on the inverse participation ratio (IPR) of the initial condition in the eigenbasis of the Hamiltonian. We explain the reversal of the complexity saturation levels observed in [Phys. Rev. E 107, 024217 (2023)] using the initial spread of the operator in the Hamiltonian eigenbasis. IPR dependence is present even in the fully chaotic regime, where popular quantifiers of chaos, such as out-of-time-ordered correlators and entanglement generation, show similar behavior regardless of the initial condition. Krylov complexity averaged over many initial conditions still does not characterize chaos.