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Krylov complexity has recently emerged as a new paradigm to characterize quantum chaos in many-body systems. However, which features of Krylov complexity are prerogative of quantum chaotic systems and how they relate to more standard probes, such as spectral statistics or out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs), remain open questions. Recent insights have revealed that in quantum chaotic systems Krylov state complexity exhibits a distinct peak during time evolution before settling into a well-understood late-time plateau. In this work, we propose that this Krylov complexity peak (KCP) is a hallmark of quantum chaotic systems and suggest that its height could serve as an `order parameter' for quantum chaos. We demonstrate that the KCP effectively identifies chaotic-integrable transitions in the mass-deformed Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model at both infinite and finite temperature, aligning with results from spectral statistics and OTOCs. Our findings offer a new diagnostic tool for quantum chaos that is operator-independent, potentially leading to more `universal' insights and a deeper understanding of general properties in quantum chaotic systems., Comment: v1: 6 pages, 3 figures, v2: references added, minor changes, supplemental material included

We explore spread and spectral complexity in quantum systems that exhibit a transition from integrability to chaos, namely the mixed-field Ising model and the next-to-nearest-neighbor deformation of the Heisenberg XXZ spin chain. We corroborate the observation that the presence of a peak in spread complexity before its saturation, is a characteristic feature in chaotic systems. We find that, in general, the saturation value of spread complexity post-peak depends not only on the spectral statistics of the Hamiltonian, but also on the specific state. However, there appears to be a maximal universal bound determined by the symmetries and dimension of the Hamiltonian, which is realized by the thermofield double state (TFD) at infinite temperature. We also find that the time scales at which the spread complexity and spectral form factor change their behaviour agree with each other and are independent of the chaotic properties of the systems. In the case of spectral complexity, we identify that the key factor determining its saturation value and timescale in chaotic systems is given by minimum energy difference in the theory's spectrum. This explains observations made in the literature regarding its earlier saturation in chaotic systems compared to their integrable counterparts. We conclude by discussing the properties of the TFD which, we conjecture, make it suitable for probing signatures of chaos in quantum many-body systems., Comment: v1: 35 pages, 18 figures, v2: references added, minor changes

Recently, the concept of spread complexity, Krylov complexity for states, has been introduced as a measure of the complexity and chaoticity of quantum systems. In this paper, we study the spread complexity of the thermofield double state within \emph{integrable} systems that exhibit saddle-dominated scrambling. Specifically, we focus on the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick model and the inverted harmonic oscillator as representative examples of quantum mechanical systems featuring saddle-dominated scrambling. Applying the Lanczos algorithm, our numerical investigation reveals that the spread complexity in these systems exhibits features reminiscent of \emph{chaotic} systems, displaying a distinctive ramp-peak-slope-plateau pattern. Our results indicate that, although spread complexity serves as a valuable probe, accurately diagnosing true quantum chaos generally necessitates additional physical input. We also explore the relationship between spread complexity, the spectral form factor, and the transition probability within the Krylov space. We provide analytical confirmation of our numerical results, validating the Ehrenfest theorem of complexity and identifying a distinct quadratic behavior in the early-time regime of spread complexity., Comment: v1: 27 pages, 17 figures; v2: references added; v3: matching the published version

Within the framework of holography, the Einstein-Maxwell action with Dirichlet boundary conditions corresponds to a dual conformal field theory in presence of an external gauge field. Nevertheless, in many real-world applications, e.g., magnetohydrodynamics, plasma physics, superconductors, etc. dynamical gauge fields and Coulomb interactions are fundamental. In this work, we consider bottom-up holographic models at finite magnetic field and (free) charge density in presence of dynamical boundary gauge fields which are introduced using mixed boundary conditions. We numerically study the spectrum of the lowest quasi-normal modes and successfully compare the obtained results to magnetohydrodynamics theory in $2+1$ dimensions. Surprisingly, as far as the electromagnetic coupling is small enough, we find perfect agreement even in the large magnetic field limit. Our results prove that a holographic description of magnetohydrodynamics does not necessarily need higher-form bulk fields but can be consistently derived using mixed boundary conditions for standard gauge fields., Comment: 54 pages, 22 figures

We investigate the upper bound of charge diffusion constant in holography. For this purpose, we apply the conjectured upper bound proposal related to the equilibration scales ($\omega_{\text{eq}}, k_{\text{eq}}$) to the Einstein-Maxwell-Axion model. ($\omega_{\text{eq}}, k_{\text{eq}}$) is defined as the collision point between the diffusive hydrodynamic mode and the first non-hydrodynamic mode, giving rise to the upper bound of the diffusion constant $D$ at low temperature $T$ as $D = \omega_{\text{eq}}/k_{\text{eq}}^2$. We show that the upper bound proposal also works for the charge diffusion and ($\omega_{\text{eq}}, k_{\text{eq}}$), at low $T$, is determined by $D$ and the scaling dimension $\Delta(0)$ of an infra-red operator as $(\omega_{\text{eq}}, \, k_{\text{eq}}^2) \,=\, (2 \pi T \Delta(0) \,, \omega_{\text{eq}}/D)$, as for other diffusion constants. However, for the charge diffusion, we find that the collision occurs at real $k_{\text{eq}}$, while it is complex for other diffusions. In order to examine the universality of the conjectured upper bound, we also introduce a higher derivative coupling to the Einstein-Maxwell-Axion model. This coupling is particularly interesting since it leads to the violation of the \textit{lower} bound of the charge diffusion constant so the correction may also have effects on the \textit{upper} bound of the charge diffusion. We find that the higher derivative coupling does not affect the upper bound so that the conjectured upper bound would not be easily violated., Comment: v1: 23 pages, 10 figures; v2: minor edits, references added

We explore quantum phase transitions using two probes of quantum chaos: out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs) and the $r$-parameter obtained from the level spacing statistics. In particular, we address $p$-spin models associated with quantum annealing or reverse annealing. Quantum annealing triggers first-order or second-order phase transitions, which is crucial for the performance of quantum devices. We find that the time-averaging OTOCs for the ground state and the average $r$-parameter change behavior around the corresponding transition points, diagnosing the phase transition. Furthermore, they can identify the order (first or second) of the phase transition by their behavior at the quantum transition point, which changes abruptly (smoothly) in the case of first-order (second-order) phase transitions., Comment: 22 pages, 23 figures

We provide a detailed examination of a thermal out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC) growing exponentially in time in systems without chaos. The system is a one-dimensional quantum mechanics with a potential whose part is an inverted harmonic oscillator. We numerically observe the exponential growth of the OTOC when the temperature is higher than a certain threshold. The Lyapunov exponent is found to be of the order of the classical Lyapunov exponent generated at the hilltop, and it remains non-vanishing even at high temperature. We adopt various shape of the potential and find these features universal. The study confirms that the exponential growth of the thermal OTOC does not necessarily mean chaos when the potential includes a local maximum. We also provide a bound for the Lyapunov exponent of the thermal OTOC in generic quantum mechanics in one dimension, which is of the same form as the chaos bound obtained by Maldacena, Shenker and Stanford., Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures; v2: Appendix B (studying other operator orderings of OTOC) added, a reference added