Krylov Complexity and Mixed-State Phase Transition
AI Breakdown
Get a structured breakdown of this paper — what it's about, the core idea, and key takeaways for the field.
Abstract
We establish a unified framework connecting decoherence and quantum complexity. By vectorizing the density matrix into a pure state in a double Hilbert space, a decoherence process is mapped to an imaginary-time evolution. Expanding this evolution in the Krylov space, we find that the $n$-th Krylov basis corresponds to an $n$-error state generated by the decoherence, providing a natural bridge between error proliferation and complexity growth. Using two dephasing quantum channels as concrete examples, we show that the Krylov complexity remains nonsingular for strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry-breaking (SWSSB) crossovers, while it exhibits a singular area-to-volume-law transition for genuine SWSSB phase transitions, intrinsic to mixed states.