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arXiv:2604.20619 · Journal of High Energy Physics

Stochastic Krylov Dynamics: Revisiting Operator Growth in Open Quantum Systems

Arpan Bhattacharyya, S. Shajidul Haque, Jeff Murugan, Mpho Tladi, Hendrik J. R. Van Zyl

hep-thcond-mat.stat-mechquant-phSubmitted Apr 22, 2026• Announced Apr 23, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

In closed quantum systems, Krylov complexity admits a geometric description; operator growth is equivalent to Hamiltonian flow in an emergent phase space whose structure is fixed by the Lanczos coefficients. We show that this picture survives, albeit in a fundamentally altered form, once the system is coupled to an environment.Using a Schwinger-Keldysh formulation of the full counting statistics of the Krylov position, we derive an effective action for operator growth under Lindblad dynamics. Even for the minimal case of dephasing, the phase-space dynamics ceases to be Hamiltonian; environmental coupling generates diffusion in the variable conjugate to Krylov depth, converting deterministic trajectories in to stochastic ones. The hyperbolic mechanism underlying exponential complexity growth is therefore broadened and, beyond a parametrically controlled scale, destroyed.This identifies dissipation as a relevant perturbation of the chaotic Krylov fixed point and reveals operator growth in open systems as a problem of stochastic dynamics in an emergent phase space.

Journal reference
JHEP 09 (2026) 127
DOI
10.1007/JHEP09(2026)127
Comments
35 pages, 2 appendices, 0 figures

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In closed quantum systems, Krylov complexity admits a geometric description; operator growth is equivalent to Hamiltonian flow in an emergent phase space whose structure is fixed by the Lanczos coefficients. We show that this picture survives, albeit in a fundamentally altered form, once the system is coupled to an environment.Using a Schwinger-Keldysh formulation of the full counting statistics of the Krylov position, we derive an effective action for operator growth under Lindblad dynamics. Even for the minimal case of dephasing, the phase-space dynamics ceases to be Hamiltonian; environmental coupling generates diffusion in the variable conjugate to Krylov depth, converting deterministic trajectories in to stochastic ones. The hyperbolic mechanism underlying exponential complexity growth is therefore broadened and, beyond a parametrically controlled scale, destroyed.This identifies dissipation as a relevant perturbation of the chaotic Krylov fixed point and reveals operator growth in open systems as a problem of stochastic dynamics in an emergent phase space.
In this work we develop a real-time Schwinger-Keldysh formulation of Krylov dynamics that treats Krylov complexity as an in-in observable generated by a closed time contour path integral. The resulting generating functional exposes an emergent phase-space description in which the Lanczos coefficients define an effective Hamiltonian governing operator motion along the Krylov chain. In the semiclassical limit, exponential complexity growth arises from hyperbolic trajectories, and asymptotically linear Lanczos growth appears as a universal chaotic fixed point, with sub-leading deformations classified as irrelevant, marginal or relevant. Going beyond the saddle, the Schwinger-Keldysh framework provides controlled access to fluctuations and large deviations of Krylov complexity, revealing sharp signatures of integrability-chaos crossovers that are invisible at the level of the mean. This formulation reorganises Krylov complexity into a dynamical field-theoretic framework and identifies new fluctuation diagnostics of operator growth in closed quantum systems.
A bstract We study the operator growth in open quantum systems with dephasing dissipation terms, extending the Krylov complexity formalism of [1]. Our results are based on the study of the dissipative q -body Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK q ) model, governed by the Markovian dynamics. We introduce a notion of “operator size concentration” which allows a diagrammatic and combinatorial proof of the asymptotic linear behavior of the two sets of Lanczos coefficients ( a n and b n ) in the large q limit. Our results corroborate with the semi-analytics in finite q in the large N limit, and the numerical Arnoldi iteration in finite q and finite N limit. As a result, Krylov complexity exhibits exponential growth following a saturation at a time that grows logarithmically with the inverse dissipation strength. The growth of complexity is suppressed compared to the closed system results, yet it upper bounds the growth of the normalized out-of-time-ordered correlator (OTOC). We provide a plausible explanation of the results from the dual gravitational side.
Abstract Inspired by the universal operator growth hypothesis, we extend the formalism of Krylov construction in dissipative open quantum systems connected to a Markovian bath. Our construction is based upon the modification of the Liouvillian superoperator by the appropriate Lindbladian, thereby following the vectorized Lanczos algorithm and the Arnoldi iteration. This is well justified due to the incorporation of non-Hermitian effects due to the environment. We study the growth of Lanczos coefficients in the transverse field Ising model (integrable and chaotic limits) for boundary amplitude damping and bulk dephasing. Although the direct implementation of the Lanczos algorithm fails to give physically meaningful results, the Arnoldi iteration retains the generic nature of the integrability and chaos as well as the signature of non-Hermiticity through separate sets of coefficients (Arnoldi coefficients) even after including the dissipative environment. Our results suggest that the Arnoldi iteration is meaningful and more appropriate in dealing with open systems.
A bstract Continuing the previous initiatives [1, 2], we pursue the exploration of operator growth and Krylov complexity in dissipative open quantum systems. In this paper, we resort to the bi-Lanczos algorithm generating two bi-orthogonal Krylov spaces, which individually generate non-orthogonal subspaces. Unlike the previously studied Arnoldi iteration, this algorithm renders the Lindbladian into a purely tridiagonal form, thus opening up a possibility to study a wide class of dissipative integrable and non-integrable systems by computing Krylov complexity at late times. Our study relies on two specific systems, the dissipative transverse-field Ising model (TFIM) and the dissipative interacting XXZ chain. We find that, for the weak coupling, initial Lanczos coefficients can efficiently distinguish integrable and chaotic evolution before the dissipative effect sets in, which results in more fluctuations in higher Lanczos coefficients. This results in the equal saturation of late-time complexity for both integrable and chaotic cases, making the notion of late-time chaos dubious.
We study quantum dynamics generated by time-dependent Hamiltonians in Krylov space, the minimal subspace in which the evolution takes place. We establish a direct link between dynamics in the time-dependent Krylov subspace and the underlying Lie-algebraic structure of the Hamiltonian. We develop a general framework in which the dynamics in the time-dependent Krylov subspace is generated by ladder operators of the associated Lie algebra. In particular, we identify the minimal conditions under which the exact time-dependent Krylov dynamics is naturally determined by the interaction-picture Hamiltonian and governed by an embedded sl(2,C)\mathfrak{sl}(2,\mathbb{C})sl(2,C) subalgebra. We further show that an exact single-exponential representation of the time-evolution operator gives rise to a distinct time-independent Krylov dynamics in a unitarily related basis, from which the exact time-dependent Krylov dynamics can nevertheless be recovered. We also extend the framework to the oscillator algebra as the simplest extension of the nilpotent Heisenberg--Weyl algebra, and provide further examples, including the translated and dilated harmonic oscillator, systems governed by closed Virasoro subalgebras, a spin in a rotating magnetic field, and higher-dimensional generalizations for multi-level systems. In addition, we introduce a new quantum speed limit to the complexity growth rate generated by a time-dependent generator and show that, for evolutions governed by a Lie algebra, it retains the same functional form as in the time-independent case. Remarkably, saturation of this bound is strongly affected by temporal driving and persists only when the Hamiltonian commutes with itself at different times. These results establish a unified framework for characterizing operator growth and Krylov complexity in time-dependent quantum systems with underlying Lie-algebraic structures.
Krylov complexity is a powerful diagnostic of quantum dynamics, with clear connections to other measures of quantum chaos and operator growth. One such measure is the Loschmidt amplitude, defined as the overlap of initially identical states evolved under two slightly different Hamiltonians. Its decay in certain systems is controlled by the classical Lyapunov exponent. Using the algebraic properties of the Krylov complexity operator, we express Krylov complexity as the derivative of a Loschmidt amplitude whose perturbation is parameterized by an angular variable φφφ. This formulation allows us to define a spectral propagator that encodes the entire complexity distribution, which we characterize for specific types of systems. We study the two-dimensional quantum geometry spanned by time and φφφ where the original and deformed trajectories reside, demonstrating that Krylov complexity is upper-bounded by its volume. We also express the time derivative of Krylov complexity in terms of a distinct Loschmidt amplitude. Depending on the growth of the Lanczos coefficients, the perturbation term in this amplitude can be truncated. We propose that the strength of this perturbation provides a classification scheme for Krylov complexity dynamics and relate it to the φφφ-derivative of the spectral propagator. Using this analytical framework, we derive general relations between the time-dependence of the survival amplitude and Krylov space measures.