Reparameterization Dependence and Holographic Complexity of Black Holes

Abstract: We refine the calculation of holographic complexity of black holes in the complexity equals action approach by applying the recently introduced criterion that the action of any causal diamond in static vacuum regions must vanish identically. This criterion fixes empty anti-de Sitter (AdS) spacetime as the reference state with vanishing complexity and renders holographic complexity explicitly finite in all the cases we consider. The cases considered here include the Reissner-Nordstr\"om-AdS black hole, the rotating BTZ black hole, the Kerr-AdS black hole, and AdS-Vaidya spacetime. The criterion is equivalent to imposing that the corner contributions vanish. Contrary to earlier results, we find that the generalized Lloyd bound always holds in the Reissner-Nordstr\"om-AdS and BTZ cases.