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arXiv:0708.1137 · Physical Review A

Quantum walks on a random environment

Y. Yin, D. E. Katsanos, S. N. Evangelou

Published Feb 5, 2008• 119 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum walks are considered in a one-dimensional random medium characterized by static or dynamic disorder. Quantum interference for static disorder can lead to Anderson localization which completely hinders the quantum walk and it is contrasted with the decoherence effect of dynamic disorder having strength $W$, where a quantum to classical crossover at time ${t}_{c}\ensuremath{\propto}{W}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$ transforms the quantum walk into an ordinary random walk with diffusive spreading. We demonstrate these localization and decoherence phenomena in quantum carpets of the observed time evolution, we relate our results to previously studied models of decoherence for quantum walks, and examine in detail a dimer lattice which corresponds to a single qubit subject to randomness.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.77.022302

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Quantum walks are considered in a one-dimensional random medium characterized by static or dynamic disorder. Quantum interference for static disorder can lead to Anderson localization which completely hinders the quantum walk and it is contrasted with the decoherence effect of dynamic disorder having strength WWW, where a quantum to classical crossover at time tc\ensuremath∝W\ensuremath−2{t}_{c}\ensuremath{\propto}{W}^{\ensuremath{-}2}tc​\ensuremath∝W\ensuremath−2 transforms the quantum walk into an ordinary random walk with diffusive spreading. We demonstrate these localization and decoherence phenomena in quantum carpets of the observed time evolution, we relate our results to previously studied models of decoherence for quantum walks, and examine in detail a dimer lattice which corresponds to a single qubit subject to randomness.
We investigate the impact of decoherence and static disorder on the dynamics of quantum particles moving in a periodic lattice. Our experiment relies on the photonic implementation of a one-dimensional quantum walk. The pure quantum evolution is characterized by a ballistic spread of a photon's wave packet along 28 steps. By applying controlled time-dependent operations we simulate three different environmental influences on the system, resulting in a fast ballistic spread, a diffusive classical walk, and the first Anderson localization in a discrete quantum walk architecture.
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Quantum walks have been shown to have impressive transport properties compared to classical random walks. However, imperfections in the quantum-walk algorithm can destroy any quantum-mechanical speedup due to Anderson localization. We numerically study the effect of static disorder on a quantum walk on the glued trees graph. For small disorder, we find that the dominant effect is a type of quantum decay, and not quantum localization. For intermediate disorder, there is a crossover to diffusive transport, while a localization transition is observed at large disorder, in agreement with Anderson localization on the Cayley tree.
Quantum walks are promising for information processing tasks because in regular graphs they spread quadratically more rapidly than random walks. Static disorder, however, can turn the tables: unlike random walks, quantum walks can suffer Anderson localization, with their wave function staying within a finite region even in the infinite time limit, with a probability exponentially close to 1. It is thus important to understand when a quantum walk will be Anderson localized and when we can expect it to spread to infinity even in the presence of disorder. In this work we analyze the response of a one-dimensional quantum walk---the split-step walk---to different forms of static disorder. We find that introducing static, symmetry-preserving disorder in the parameters of the walk leads to Anderson localization. In the completely disordered limit, however, a delocalization transition occurs, and the walk spreads subdiffusively to infinity. Using an efficient numerical algorithm, we calculate the bulk topological invariants of the disordered walk and find that the disorder-induced Anderson localization and delocalization transitions are governed by the topological phases of the quantum walk.
The interplay between disorder and topology triggers interesting effects for the propagation of quantum particles in low-dimensional network structures. For instance, the occurrence of Anderson localization, a commonly observed effect in a quantum network with static disorder, can be suppressed by introducing topology-a phenomenon dubbed as topological Anderson localization transition [1] . In one-dimensional systems, for example, disorder induces localization on a short length scale while topology counters that through long-range correlations, yielding divergent correlation length and extremely slow spreading at quantum criticality. However, its experimental demonstration still remains an outstanding challenge as that would require, in contrast to Anderson localization transition, addi¬tional control over internal degrees of freedom, which is hard to implement, for instance, in cold-atom systems [2] . Quantum walks (QWs), a quantum analog of random walks, comprising quantum coin toss and conditioned step operations are already established for studying quantum transport phenomena, such as, disorder and topology [5] . Based on our theoretical proposal [3] , here, we provide an experimental route using time-multiplexed quantum walk [4] for evidencing the targeted phenomenon.
Discrete-time quantum walks, quantum generalizations of classical random walks, provide a framework for quantum information processing, quantum algorithms, and quantum simulation of condensed-matter systems. The key property of quantum walks, which lies at the heart of their quantum information applications, is the possibility for a parametric quantum speedup in propagation compared to classical random walks. In this work we study propagation of quantum walks on percolation-generated two-dimensional random lattices. In large-scale simulations of topological and trivial split-step walks, we identify distinct prediffusive and diffusive behaviors at different timescales. Importantly, we show that even arbitrarily weak concentrations of randomly removed lattice sites give rise to a complete breakdown of the superdiffusive quantum speedup, reducing the motion to ordinary diffusion. By increasing the randomness, quantum walks eventually stop spreading due to Anderson localization. Near the localization threshold, we find that the quantum walks become subdiffusive. The fragility of quantum speedup implies dramatic limitations for quantum information applications of quantum walks on random geometries and graphs.