Complexity in the presence of a boundary

Abstract

The effects of a boundary on the circuit complexity are studied in two dimensional theories. The analysis is performed in the holographic realization of a conformal field theory with a boundary by employing different proposals for the dual of the complexity, including the "Complexity = Volume" (CV) and "Complexity = Action" (CA) prescriptions, and in the harmonic chain with Dirichlet boundary conditions. In all the cases considered except for CA, the boundary introduces a subleading logarithmic divergence in the expansion of the complexity as the UV cutoff vanishes. Holographic subregion complexity is also explored in the CV case, finding that it can change discontinuously under continuous variations of the configuration of the subregion.