Complexity growth for one-dimensional free-fermionic lattice models

Abstract: Complexity plays a very important part in quantum computing and simulation where it acts as a measure of the minimal number of gates that are required to implement a unitary circuit. We study the lower bound of the complexity [Eisert, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 020501 (2021)] for the unitary dynamics of the one-dimensional lattice models of non-interacting fermions. We find analytically using quasiparticle formalism, the bound grows linearly in time and followed by a saturation for short-ranged tight-binding Hamiltonians. We show numerical evidence that for an initial Neel state the bound is maximum for tight-binding Hamiltonians as well as for the long-range hopping models. However, the increase of the bound is sub-linear in time for the later, in contrast to the linear growth observed for short-range models. The upper bound of the complexity in non-interacting fermionic lattice models is calculated, which grows linearly in time even beyond the saturation time of the lower bound, and finally, it also saturates.