- Letter
- Open Access
From Krylov complexity to observability: Capturing phase space dimension with applications in quantum reservoir computing
Phys. Rev. Research 7, L042039 – Published 20 November, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/m9kq-wrln
Abstract
We demonstrate that time-evolved operators can construct a Krylov space to compute operator complexity and introduce Krylov observability as a measure of effective phase space dimension in quantum systems. We test Krylov observability in the framework of quantum reservoir computing and show that it closely mirrors information processing capacity, a data-driven expressivity metric, while achieving computation times that are orders of magnitude faster. Our results validate operator complexity and give the interpretation that data in a quantum reservoir are mapped onto the Krylov space.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
See Also
Engineering quantum reservoirs through Krylov complexity, expressivity, and observability
Article Text
References (83)
- D. E. Parker, X. Cao, A. Avdoshkin, T. Scaffidi, and E. Altman, A universal operator growth hypothesis, Phys. Rev. X 9, 041017 (2019).
- V. Balasubramanian, P. Caputa, J. M. Magan, and Q. Wu, Quantum chaos and the complexity of spread of states, Phys. Rev. D 106, 046007 (2022).
- V. Balasubramanian, J. M. Magan, and Q. Wu, Quantum chaos, integrability, and late times in the Krylov basis, Phys. Rev. E 111, 014218 (2025).
- B. Bhattacharjee, P. Nandy, and T. Pathak, Operator dynamics in Lindbladian SYK: A Krylov complexity perspective, J. High Energy Phys. 01 (2024) 94.
- S. Jian, B. Swingle, and Z. Xian, Complexity growth of operators in the SYK model and in JT gravity, J. High Energy Phys. 03 (2021) 14.
- P. Caputa and S. Datta, Operator growth in 2d CFT, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2021) 188.
- A. A. Nizami and A. W. Shrestha, Krylov construction and complexity for driven quantum systems, Phys. Rev. E 108, 054222 (2023).
- A. Bhattacharya, P. Nandy, P. P. Nath, and H. Sahu, Operator growth and Krylov construction in dissipative open quantum systems, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2022) 81.
- C. Liu, H. Tang, and H. Zhai, Krylov complexity in open quantum systems, Phys. Rev. Res. 5, 033085 (2023).
- S. E. Aguilar-Gutierrez and A. Rolph, Krylov complexity is not a measure of distance between states or operators, Phys. Rev. D 109, L081701 (2024).
- M. Alishahiha and S. Banerjee, A universal approach to Krylov state and operator complexities, SciPost Phys. 15, 080 (2023).
- T. Anegawa, N. Iizuka, and M. Nishida, Krylov complexity as an order parameter for deconfinement phase transitions at large , J. High Energy Phys. 04 (2024) 119.
- J. L. F. Barbón, E. Rabinovici, R. Shir, and R. Sinha, On the evolution of operator complexity beyond scrambling, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2019) 264.
- H. A. Camargo, V. Jahnke, K. Kim, and M. Nishida, Krylov complexity in free and interacting scalar field theories with bounded power spectrum, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2023) 226.
- P. Caputa, H. Jeong, S. Yi, J. F. Pedraza, and L. Qu, Krylov complexity of density matrix operators, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2024) 337.
- X. Cao, A statistical mechanism for operator growth, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 54, 144001 (2021).
- A. Chattopadhyay, A. Mitra, and H. J. R. van Zyl, Spread complexity as classical dilaton solutions, Phys. Rev. D 108, 025013 (2023).
- B. Craps, O. Evnin, and G. Pascuzzi, A relation between Krylov and Nielsen complexity, Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 160402 (2024).
- A. Dymarsky and M. Smolkin, Krylov complexity in conformal field theory, Phys. Rev. D 104, L081702 (2021).
- J. Erdmenger, S. Jian, and Z. Xian, Universal chaotic dynamics from Krylov space, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2023) 176.
- Z. Fan, Universal relation for operator complexity, Phys. Rev. A 105, 062210 (2022).
- M. Gautam, Kunal Pal, Kuntal Pal, A. Gill, N. Jaiswal, and T. Sarkar, Spread complexity evolution in quenched interacting quantum systems, Phys. Rev. B 109, 014312 (2024).
- W. Gilpin, Model scale versus domain knowledge in statistical forecasting of chaotic systems, Phys. Rev. Res. 5, 043252 (2023).
- S. Guo, Operator growth in SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, arXiv:2208.13362.
- K. Hashimoto, K. Murata, N. Tanahashi, and R. Watanabe, Krylov complexity and chaos in quantum mechanics, J. High Energy Phys. 011 (2023) 40.
- S. He, P. H. C. Lau, Z. Xian, and L. Zhao, Quantum chaos, scrambling and operator growth in deformed SYK models, J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2022) 70.
- R. Heveling, J. Wang, and J. Gemmer, Numerically probing the universal operator growth hypothesis, Phys. Rev. E 106, 014152 (2022).
- K. Huh, H. Jeong, and J. F. Pedraza, Spread complexity in saddle-dominated scrambling, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2024) 137.
- N. Iizuka and M. Nishida, Krylov complexity in the IP matrix model, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2023) 065.
- J. Kim, J. Murugan, J. Olle, and D. Rosa, Operator delocalization in quantum networks, Phys. Rev. A 105, L010201 (2022).
- X. Li, Q. Zhu, C. Zhao, X. Duan, B. Zhao, X. Zhang, H. Ma, J. Sun, and W. Lin, Higher-order Granger reservoir computing: Simultaneously achieving scalable complex structures inference and accurate dynamics prediction, Nat. Commun. 15, 2506 (2024).
- H. W. Lin, The bulk Hilbert space of double scaled SYK, J. High Energy Phys. 11 (2022) 60.
- J. M. Magan and J. Simón, On operator growth and emergent Poincaré symmetries, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2020) 71.
- W. Mück and Y. Yang, Krylov complexity and orthogonal polynomials, Nucl. Phys. B 984, 115948 (2022).
- S. Nandy, B. Mukherjee, A. Bhattacharyya, and A. Banerjee, Quantum state complexity meets many-body scars, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 36, 155601 (2024).
- M. A. Nielsen, M. R. Dowling, M. Gu, and A. C. Doherty, Quantum computation as geometry, Science 311, 1133 (2006).
- K. Pal, A. Gill, and T. Sarkar, Time evolution of spread complexity and statistics of work done in quantum quenches, Phys. Rev. B 108, 104311 (2023).
- D. Patramanis, Probing the entanglement of operator growth, Prog. Theor. Phys. 2022, 063A01 (2022).
- E. Rabinovici, A. Sánchez-Garrido, R. Shir, and J. Sonner, A bulk manifestation of Krylov complexity, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2023) 213.
- M. J. Vasli, K. B. Velni, M. R. M. Mozaffar, A. Mollabashi, and M. Alishahiha, Krylov complexity in Lifshitz-type scalar field theories, Eur. Phys. J. C 84, 235 (2024).
- S. Čindrak, A. Paschke, L. C. Jaurigue, and K. Lüdge, Measurable Krylov spaces and eigenenergy count in quantum state dynamics, J. High Energ. Phys. 10 (2024) 83.
- Y. Zhou, W. Xia, L. Li, and W. Li, Diagnosing quantum many-body chaos in non-Hermitian quantum spin chain via Krylov complexity, Phys. Rev. Res. 7, 033281 (2025).
- P. Nandy, A. S. Matsoukas-Roubeas, P. Martínez-Azcona, A. Dymarsky, and A. del Campo, Quantum dynamics in Krylov space: Methods and applications, Phys. Rep. 1125, 1 (2025).
- P. Suchsland, R. Moessner, and P. W. Claeys, Krylov complexity and Trotter transitions in unitary circuit dynamics, Phys. Rev. B 111, 014309 (2025).
- B. Bhattacharjee, X. Cao, P. Nandy, and T. Pathak, Krylov complexity in saddle-dominated scrambling, J. High Energy Phys. 05 (2022) 174.
- B. Bhattacharjee, S. Sur, and P. Nandy, Probing quantum scars and weak ergodicity breaking through quantum complexity, Phys. Rev. B 106, 205150 (2022).
- S. Čindrak, L. C. Jaurigue, and K. Lüdge, companion paper, Engineering quantum reservoirs through Krylov complexity, expressivity, and observability, Phys. Rev. Res. 7, 043190 (2025).
- B. Craps, O. Evnin, and G. Pascuzzi, Multiseed Krylov complexity, Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 050402 (2025).
- H. Jaeger, The “echo state” approach to analysing and training recurrent neural networks, GMD Report 148, German National Research Institute for Computer Science, 2001, doi:10.24406/publica-fhg-291111.
- W. Maass, T. Natschläger, and H. Markram, Real-time computing without stable states: A new framework for neural computation based on perturbations, Neural Comput. 14, 2531 (2002).
- D. Verstraeten, B. Schrauwen, M. D'Haene, and D. Stroobandt, An experimental unification of reservoir computing methods, Neural Netw. 20, 391 (2007), .
- L. Appeltant, M. C. Soriano, G. Van der Sande, J. Danckaert, S. Massar, J. Dambre, B. Schrauwen, C. R. Mirasso, and I. Fischer, Information processing using a single dynamical node as complex system, Nat. Commun. 2, 468 (2011).
- K. Fujii and K. Nakajima, Harnessing disordered-ensemble quantum dynamics for machine learning, Phys. Rev. Appl. 8, 024030 (2017), .
- K. Nakajima, K. Fujii, M. Negoro, K. Mitarai, and M. Kitagawa, Boosting computational power through spatial multiplexing in quantum reservoir computing, Phys. Rev. Appl.11, 034021 (2019), .
- A. Kutvonen, K. Fujii, and T. Sagawa, Optimizing a quantum reservoir computer for time series prediction, Sci. Rep. 10, 14687 (2020).
- R. Martínez-Peña, G. L. Giorgi, J. Nokkala, M. C. Soriano, and R. Zambrini, Dynamical phase transitions in quantum reservoir computing, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 100502 (2021).
- W. Xia, J. Zou, X. Qiu, and X. Li, The reservoir learning power across quantum many-body localization transition, Front. Phys. 17, 33506 (2022).
- N. Götting, F. Lohof, and C. Gies, Exploring quantumness in quantum reservoir computing, Phys. Rev. A 108, 052427 (2023).
- J. Chen, H. I. Nurdin, and N. Yamamoto, Temporal information processing on noisy quantum computers, Phys. Rev. Appl. 14, 024065 (2020).
- Y. Suzuki, Q. Gao, K. C. Pradel, K. Yasuoka, and N. Yamamoto, Natural quantum reservoir computing for temporal information processing, Sci. Rep. 12, 1353 (2022), .
- P. Pfeffer, F. Heyder, and J. Schumacher, Hybrid quantum-classical reservoir computing of thermal convection flow, Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 033176 (2022).
- T. Yasuda, Y. Suzuki, T. Kubota, K. Nakajima, Q. Gao, W. Zhang, S. Shimono, H. I. Nurdin, and N. Yamamoto, Quantum reservoir computing with repeated measurements on superconducting devices, arXiv:2310.06706.
- J. Nokkala, G. L. Giorgi, and R. Zambrini, Retrieving past quantum features with deep hybrid classical-quantum reservoir computing, Mach. Learn.: Sci. Technol. 5, 035022 (2024).
- A. H. Abbas, H. Abdel-Ghani, and I. S. Maksymov, Classical and quantum physical reservoir computing for onboard artificial intelligence systems: A perspective, arXiv:2407.04717.
- A. Sannia, R. Martínez-Peña, M. C. Soriano, G. L. Giorgi, and R. Zambrini, Dissipation as a resource for quantum reservoir computing, Quantum 8, 1291 (2024).
- D. Fry, A. Deshmukh, S. Y. Chen, V. Rastunkov, and V. Markov, Optimizing quantum noise-induced reservoir computing for nonlinear and chaotic time series prediction, Sci. Rep. 13, 19326 (2023).
- L. Domingo, G. Carlo, and F. Borondo, Taking advantage of noise in quantum reservoir computing, Sci. Rep. 13, 8790 (2023).
- P. Mujal, R. Martínez-Peña, G. L. Giorgi, M. C. Soriano, and R. Zambrini, Time-series quantum reservoir computing with weak and projective measurements, npj Quantum Inf. 9, 16 (2023).
- S. Čindrak, B. Donvil, K. Lüdge, and L. C. Jaurigue, Enhancing the performance of quantum reservoir computing and solving the time-complexity problem by artificial memory restriction, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 013051 (2024).
- O. Ahmed, F. Tennie, and L. Magri, Prediction of chaotic dynamics and extreme events: A recurrence-free quantum reservoir computing approach, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 043082 (2024).
- K. Kobayashi, K. Fujii, and N. Yamamoto, Feedback-driven quantum reservoir computing for time-series analysis, PRX Quantum 5, 040325 (2024).
- C. Zhu, P. J. Ehlers, H. I. Nurdin, and D. Soh, Practical and scalable quantum reservoir computing, Phys. Rev. Res. 7, 023290 (2025).
- N. Schütte, N. Götting, H. Müntinga, M. List, and C. Gies, Expressive limits of quantum reservoir computing, arXiv:2501.15528.
- M. Vetrano, G. Lo Monaco, L. Innocenti, S. Lorenzo, and G. M. Palma, Publisher Correction: State estimation with quantum extreme learning machines beyond the scrambling time, npj Quantum Inf. 11, 35 (2025).
- J. Dambre, D. Verstraeten, B. Schrauwen, and S. Massar, Information processing capacity of dynamical systems, Sci. Rep. 2, 514 (2012).
- B. Misra and E. C. G. Sudarshan, The Zeno's paradox in quantum theory, J. Math. Phys. 18, 756 (1977).
- P. Facchi and S. Pascazio, Quantum Zeno dynamics: Mathematical and physical aspects, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 41, 493001 (2008).
- L. Domingo, F. Borondo, G. Scialchi, A. J. Roncaglia, G. G. Carlo, and D. A. Wisniacki, Quantum reservoir complexity by the Krylov evolution approach, Phys. Rev. A 110, 022446 (2024).
- T. Kubota, H. Takahashi, and K. Nakajima, Unifying framework for information processing in stochastically driven dynamical systems, Phys. Rev. Res. 3, 043135 (2021).
- V. Oganesyan and D. A. Huse, Localization of interacting fermions at high temperature, Phys. Rev. B 75, 155111 (2007).
- O. Bohigas, M. J. Giannoni, and C. Schmit, Characterization of chaotic quantum spectra and universality of level fluctuation laws, Phys. Rev. Lett. 52, 1 (1984).
- J. M. Deutsch, Quantum statistical mechanics in a closed system, Phys. Rev. A 43, 2046 (1991).
- M. Srednicki, The approach to thermal equilibrium in quantized chaotic systems, J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 32, 1163 (1999).