Dissecting Quantum Many-body Chaos in the Krylov Space

Abstract

The growth of simple operators is essential for the emergence of chaotic dynamics and quantum thermalization. Recent studies have proposed different measures, including the out-of-time-order correlator and Krylov complexity. It is established that the out-of-time-order correlator serves as the signature of quantum many-body chaos, while the Krylov complexity provides its upper bound. However, there exist non-chaotic systems in which Krylov complexity grows exponentially, indicating that the Krylov complexity itself is not a witness of many-body chaos. In this letter, we introduce the missing ingredient, named as the Krylov metric $K_{mn}$, which probes the size of the Krylov basis. We propose that the universal criteria for fast scramblers include (i) the exponential growth of Krylov complexity, (ii) the diagonal elements $K_{nn}\sim n^h$ with $h\in(0,1]$, and (iii) the negligibility of off-diagonal elements $K_{mn}$ with $m\neq n$. We further show that $h=\varkappa / 2\alpha$ is a ratio between the quantum Lyapunov exponent $\varkappa$ and the Krylov exponent $\alpha$. This proposal is supported by both generic arguments and explicit examples, including solvable SYK models, Luttinger Liquids, and many-body localized systems. Our results provide a refined understanding of how chaotic dynamics emerge from the Krylov space perspective.