Saturation and recurrence of quantum complexity in random local quantum dynamics

Abstract

Quantum complexity is a measure of the minimal number of elementary operations required to approximately prepare a given state or unitary channel. Recently, this concept has found applications beyond quantum computing -- in studying the dynamics of quantum many-body systems and the long-time properties of AdS black holes. In this context Brown and Susskind \cite{BrownSusskind17} conjectured that the complexity of a chaotic quantum system grows linearly in time up to times exponential in the system size, saturating at a maximal value, and remaining maximally complex until undergoing recurrences at doubly-exponential times. In this work we prove the saturation and recurrence of complexity in two models of chaotic time evolutions based on (i) random local quantum circuits and (ii) stochastic local Hamiltonian evolution. Our results advance an understanding of the long-time behaviour of chaotic quantum systems and could shed light on the physics of black hole interiors. From a technical perspective our results are based on establishing new quantitative connections between the Haar measure and high-degree approximate designs, as well as the fact that random quantum circuits of sufficiently high depth converge to approximate designs.

57 pages, 6 figures, comments and suggestions are welcome, major changes in v2: new title, simplified reasoning based on global gaps, inclusion of SLH model of random evolutions, numerous narrative changes throughout the text, new author

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Non-Haar random circuits form unitary designs as fast as Haar random circuits
• Random Circuits in the Black Hole Interior
• Fundamental solutions of heat equation on unitary groups establish an improved relation between $\epsilon$-nets and approximate unitary $t$-designs
• Shallow quantum circuit for generating extremely low-entangled approximate state designs
• Comparing quantum complexity and quantum fidelity