Complexity of quadratic quantum chaos

A bstract We investigate minimal two-body Hamiltonians with random interactions that generate spectra resembling those of Gaussian random matrices, a phenomenon we term quadratic quantum chaos . Unlike integrable two-body fermionic systems, the corresponding hard-core boson models exhibit genuinely chaotic dynamics, closely paralleling the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model in its spin representation. This chaotic behavior is diagnosed through spectral statistics and measures of operator growth, including Krylov complexity and the late-time decay of higher-order out-of-time-ordered correlators (OTOCs); the latter reveals the emergence of freeness in the sense of free probability. Moreover, the fractal dimension and Stabilizer Rényi entropy of a representative mid-spectrum eigenstate show finite-size deviations yet converge toward Haar-randomness as the system size increases. This convergence, constrained by local interactions, highlights the “weakly chaotic” character of these eigenstates. Owing to their simplicity and bosonic nature, these minimal models may constitute promising and resource-efficient candidates for probing quantum chaos and information scrambling on near-term quantum devices.