Krylov complexity of a tilted extended Bose-Hubbard chain with Rydberg-dressed interactions

arXiv:2610.00712 · cond-mat.quant-gas, physics.optics · Submitted 2026-09-30 · Read on arXiv

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Introduction to the show: ident: Quantum Radio. Generated commentary on the latest quantum physics and condensed matter papers.

Kai: Today's paper: "Krylov complexity of a tilted extended Bose-Hubbard chain with Rydberg-dressed interactions".

Mira: Krylov complexity analysis reveals state-dependent information scrambling in a tilted extended Bose-Hubbard chain with Rydberg-dressed interactions, providing complementary dynamical insights beyond traditional spectral diagnostics.

Kai: First, who's behind it and why it matters.

Paper summary: Kai: So, wrapping up, the main point of this paper, "Krylov complexity of a tilted extended Bose-Hubbard chain with Rydberg-dressed interactions," is that Krylov complexity offers complementary information to level-spacing statistics and eigenstate delocalization when studying thermalization in these interacting systems.

Mira: That's right. The authors argue that it captures state-dependent information scrambling through its saturation behavior, particularly identifying a "pronounced diagonal ridge near U V" as a signature of strong dynamical mixing <ref:2610.00712#pg0>.

Lev: From an engineering standpoint, this means we have another metric—the Krylov complexity—that we can use to diagnose how well our quantum simulators are actually scrambling information in the presence of competing interactions, which is much more detailed than just looking at the final energy spectrum.

Kai: It really highlights that spectral diagnostics alone don't give you the whole story about chaos in these complex lattice setups because Krylov complexity provides that extra layer of detail.

Mira: Exactly, and this distinction is important because it shows that these dynamical measures can diverge from standard spectral chaos indicators in finite interacting lattice systems, capturing features specific to the state complexity over just spectral diagnostics <ref:2610.00712#pg1>.

Lev: If we're running simulations or experiments on this hardware, being able to use Krylov complexity allows us to probe those specific dynamical pathways that are inaccessible through simpler methods like consecutive-gap ratios <ref:2610.00712#pg1>.

Kai: So, the implication is that this tool can be a useful diagnostic for understanding how these systems thermalize and scramble information in a way that's tied to the initial conditions of the state <ref:2610.00712#pg0>.

Mira: Indeed, and it sets up a clear direction for future research by providing a tool that links dynamical mixing directly to the structure of the Krylov space derived from specific initial states <ref:2610.00712#pg2>.

Lev: We can expect this approach to be useful for developing more robust methods of characterizing quantum dynamics in complex, realistic simulators because it grounds the diagnostic tool in observable state properties rather than just abstract spectral quantities.

Kai: It sounds like this work provides a solid foundation for using Krylov complexity as a way to characterize the actual dynamical behavior occurring inside these systems.

Conclusion: Kai: So, when we look at the title and who wrote it, the core idea is using this complexity measure to track how information gets mixed up in these specific quantum models.

Mira: Exactly, and the authors are focusing on a tilted chain with Rydberg dressing because that setup introduces those competing interactions that make things interesting.

Lev: From a researcher's viewpoint, what this means is they’re trying to find a way to measure the actual scrambling happening inside the system without needing to solve for every single state of the many-body system, which is usually impossible.

Kai: I mean, in simple terms, they're using this complexity number as a direct window into how quickly and how thoroughly quantum information spreads within this lattice setup.

Mira: And that spreading isn't just happening randomly; it’s tied to the specific configuration of the interactions—whether hopping or density-density effects dominate.

Lev: For someone thinking about real hardware, this suggests we can use these computational shortcuts to see if our simulated systems are actually thermalizing like they should under those complex interaction conditions.

Kai: It opens up a new way for us to test the limits of what these quantum simulators can do in terms of information processing.

Mira: And that’s what I find really compelling—moving beyond just looking at energy levels to probe the actual dynamical mixing itself.

Lev: So, if this technique works well on a simplified model like N=six there's hope for applying it to much larger, more realistic systems down the line.

Kai: It really points toward a future where we can diagnose complex quantum behavior using these kinds of state-dependent tools instead of just standard spectral diagnostics.

Mira: And that sets us up perfectly to discuss what this means for other condensed matter problems involving competing interactions next.

Yifan Chen, Tianyi Yan, Lu Qin, Weibin Li

School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham · Taishan College, Shandong University · Centre for the Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of Quantum Non-equilibrium Systems, University of Nottingham · School of Physics, Henan Normal University

cond-mat.quant-gas, physics.optics

Submitted: 2026-09-30

Updated: 2026-09-30

Comments: 10 pages, 5 figures

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Importance score: 83/100

The gist: Krylov complexity analysis reveals state-dependent information scrambling in a tilted extended Bose-Hubbard chain with Rydberg-dressed interactions, providing complementary dynamical insights beyond

Key concepts

Krylov Complexity (CK(t))
This measures how quickly a quantum state spreads across the system when subjected to time evolution, calculated via a Lanczos recursion. It quantifies the mean position on the chain generated by this process, providing insight into dynamical spreading.
Bose-Hubbard Model with Rydberg Dressing
This is a physical model describing interacting bosons in an optical lattice. The 'Rydberg dressing' allows researchers to tune long-range interactions between particles, enabling the study of complex many-body dynamics.
State-Dependent Information Scrambling
This refers to the process where information about the initial state becomes highly mixed and spread across many different states in a way that depends on which specific initial state is chosen. Krylov complexity is found to be a sensitive measure of this unique scrambling mechanism.

Terminology

Summary

Krylov complexity analysis reveals state-dependent information scrambling in a tilted extended Bose-Hubbard chain with Rydberg-dressed interactions, providing complementary dynamical insights beyond traditional spectral diagnostics. The study establishes that this complexity captures unique features of many-body chaos driven by competing interactions, offering a valuable diagnostic tool for experimentally accessible quantum simulators.

The Model and Setup

The research investigates the dynamics of a one-dimensional extended Bose-Hubbard model described by Hamiltonian (1), which includes nearest-neighbor hopping (J), on-site interaction (U), and nearest-neighbor interaction (V). This extended model is realized using Rydberg dressing in optical lattices, allowing for tunable long-range interactions. The study focuses on the fixed particle number sector, specifically considering the case where N = L = 6 to ensure a Hilbert space dimension of D = 462 for tractable exact diagonalization. To probe state dependence, three physically motivated Fock states are chosen as initial seeds: ψl⟩ (maximally localized), ψh⟩ (homogeneous Mott-like product state), and ψs⟩ (period-two staggered density wave state).

Krylov Complexity Diagnostics

The Krylov complexity, CK(t), is defined as the mean position on the one-dimensional tight-binding chain generated by the Lanczos recursion applied to the time evolution of an initial quantum state. The recurrence relations are given by (2a) and (2b), where Kn⟩ is constructed iteratively. The complexity itself is quantified as CK(t) = K/X−1 n=0 n φn(t)2 (5). Its long-time average, C sat, is governed by Q0n, which depends on the overlap between the initial state and the exact many-body eigenstates Em⟩. At short times, CK(t) grows quadratically with time: CK(t) = b21 t2 + O(t4), where b21 = σ squared (7).

Key Findings in Interaction Regimes

The analysis yields three main findings regarding the competition between U and V:

  1. Enhanced Krylov spreading is observed at intermediate interactions when the hopping J is comparable to the nearest-neighbor interaction V, distinguishing chaotic from integrable regimes.

  2. A pronounced diagonal ridge near U ≃ V in the saturation of the Krylov complexity that is not accompanied by an equally sharp spectral signature, indicating strong state-dependent information scrambling due to competing interactions.

  3. The Krylov state complexity provides complementary, state-sensitive information about many-body chaos that is not captured by the spectral diagnostics alone.

Comparison with Spectral Diagnostics

The study contrasts Krylov complexity with standard spectral probes:

(i) Spectral Measures:

(ii) Lanczos Fluctuations:

The paper evaluates consecutive-gap ratios (10), where Poisson (POI)-like distributions indicate integrable spectra, and Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble (GOE)-like distributions suggest chaotic regimes. Furthermore, the Shannon information entropy of state intensities in Fock space is probed using finite-size generalized fractal dimensions (GFDs), De(m)1 (12).

Regime Analysis

The results are analyzed across different interaction regimes:

(a) Bose-Hubbard Regime (V ∼ 0):

In this limit, the Krylov complexity exhibits a pronounced dependence on the on-site interaction. At short times, the weak interaction U/J = 0.562 reaches a much larger Krylov complexity than intermediate and strong cases (U/J = 2.512, 14.125).

(b) Nearest-Neighbor Interaction Dominant Regime:

When V dominates, the dynamics show that the nearest-neighbor interaction alone plays largely similar roles as the on-site interaction in the spectral statistics. The long-time saturation shows that the nearest-neighbor interaction enhances the accessible Hilbert-space connectivity, with complexity saturating at a larger value compared to the Bose-Hubbard case.

(c) Comparable On-Site and Nearest-Neighbor Interactions (U ∼ V):

When U and V are comparable, the Krylov diagnostics identify a pronounced enhancement of many-body spreading. A crucial finding is the diagonal ridge near U ∼ V, where complexity is dramatically enhanced due to the generation of a dense manifold of near-resonant many-body configurations with other eigenstates. This regime demonstrates that Krylov complexity captures state-dependent information scrambling and can identify strong dynamical mixing.

Conclusion

The investigation concludes that Krylov state complexity offers complementary information to level-spacing statistics and eigenstate delocalization, establishing it as a valuable diagnostic for studying thermalization and information scrambling in experimentally accessible quantum simulators. The study highlights that Krylov diagnostics can diverge from spectral chaos indicators in finite interacting lattice systems, capturing unique features of state complexity over spectral diagnostics.

Improvements for AI systems

As a fastidious researcher, I have analyzed this paper titled Krylov complexity of a tilted extended Bose-Hubbard chain with Rydberg-dressed interactions. The key findings revolve around using Krylov complexity as a state-sensitive diagnostic for quantum chaos and thermalization in interacting many-body systems.

Here are the specific improvements to AI systems based on this research, along with what those improved systems can achieve:


The primary improvement lies in enhancing AI's ability to predict and characterize complex, non-equilibrium dynamics in strongly correlated quantum many-body systems, particularly near integrable-to-chaotic crossovers.

  1. The AI system will be enhanced with a module capable of calculating and analyzing Krylov complexity metrics (e.g., time evolution of the mean position on the Krylov basis, saturation values, and fluctuation statistics).

  2. The AI will be trained to correlate these Krylov complexity signatures with specific Hamiltonian parameters (like the competition between on-site interaction U and nearest-neighbor interaction V) across different initial states.

This improved AI system can perform the following specific tasks:

  1. Predicting Dynamical Regimes: The system can accurately predict whether a given configuration of interacting particles in an optical lattice will exhibit integrable or chaotic dynamics based on calculated Krylov complexity patterns, rather than relying solely on spectral diagnostics (like level spacing statistics).

  2. Identifying State-Dependent Scrambling Pathways: The AI can pinpoint the specific initial states (e.g., maximally localized vs. Mott-like vs. density wave) that lead to distinct information scrambling pathways, allowing for targeted study of how different experimental preparations influence quantum chaos.

  3. Diagnosing Non-Classical Crossovers: The system can detect subtle dynamical crossovers, such as the pronounced diagonal ridge near U ≈ V where Krylov complexity saturates sharply while spectral signatures remain relatively smooth. This capability is crucial for identifying regimes where traditional diagnostics fail, providing a more robust indicator of strong state-dependent information scrambling.

  4. Guiding Experimental Control: By mapping Hamiltonian parameters to Krylov complexity saturation values, the AI can provide feedback to experimentalists on which interaction strengths (U/J vs. V/J) are most likely to induce desired chaotic or thermalizing behavior in an experimentally accessible quantum simulator (like a Rydberg-dressed chain).

  5. Characterizing Thermalization Efficiency: The long-time average of Krylov complexity provides a complementary measure to spectral diagnostics for studying eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH). The AI can use this metric to quantify how quickly and effectively quantum information is scrambled across the many-body Hilbert space.

Abstract

We investigate Krylov state complexity in a tilted extended Bose-Hubbard chain in which both the on-site interaction U and nearest-neighbor interaction V are present. The tilted extended Bose-Hubbard model can be realized with Rydberg-dressed interactions in optical lattices. Using exact diagonalization and Lanczos recursion from three physically motivated Fock states, we compute the time-dependent complexity, its long-time saturation value, and the fluctuations of the Lanczos coefficients for an open chain at unit filling. Crucially, we identify a pronounced quasi-chaotic diagonal regime near U V in which the Krylov complexity saturation exhibits a sharp ridge while the spectral level-spacing statistics remain partially chaotic. This dissociation arises from the competition between the on-site and nearest-neighbor interaction, which generates a dense manifold of near-resonant many-body configurations that is efficiently coupled by the state-dependent dynamics but retains residual spectral structure. Our results show that Krylov state complexity provides complementary, state-sensitive information about many-body chaos that is not captured by the spectral diagnostics alone, establishing Krylov complexity as a useful diagnostic for studying thermalization and information scrambling in experimentally accessible quantum simulators.

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