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arXiv:1004.1134 · Physical Review A

Distribution of chirality in the quantum walk: Markov process and entanglement

A. Romanelli

Published Jun 30, 2010• 44 citations
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Abstract

The asymptotic behavior of the quantum walk on the line is investigated, focusing on the probability distribution of chirality independently of position. It is shown analytically that this distribution has a longtime limit that is stationary and depends on the initial conditions. This result is unexpected in the context of the unitary evolution of the quantum walk as it is usually linked to a Markovian process. The asymptotic value of the entanglement between the coin and the position is determined by the chirality distribution. For given asymptotic values of both the entanglement and the chirality distribution, it is possible to find the corresponding initial conditions within a particular class of spatially extended Gaussian distributions.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.81.062349

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The asymptotic behavior of the quantum walk on the line is investigated, focusing on the probability distribution of chirality independently of position. It is shown analytically that this distribution has a longtime limit that is stationary and depends on the initial conditions. This result is unexpected in the context of the unitary evolution of the quantum walk as it is usually linked to a Markovian process. The asymptotic value of the entanglement between the coin and the position is determined by the chirality distribution. For given asymptotic values of both the entanglement and the chirality distribution, it is possible to find the corresponding initial conditions within a particular class of spatially extended Gaussian distributions.
We investigate the time evolution of the chirality reduced density matrix for a discrete-time quantum walk on a one-dimensional lattice. The matrix is obtained by tracing out the spatial degree of freedom. We analyze the standard case, without decoherence, and the situation in which decoherence appears in the form of broken links in the lattice. By examining the trace distance for possible pairs of initial states as a function of time, we conclude that the evolution of the reduced density matrix is non-Markovian, in the sense defined by Breuer, Laine, and Piilo [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 210401 (2009)]. As the level of noise increases, the dynamics approaches a Markovian process. The highest non-Markovianity corresponds to the case without decoherence. The reduced density matrix tends always to a well-defined limit that we calculate, but only in the decoherence-free case is this limit nontrivial.
The evolution operator of a discrete-time quantum walk involves a conditional shift in position space which entangles the 'coin' and position degrees of freedom of the walker. After several steps, the coin-position entanglement (CPE) converges to a well-defined value which depends on the initial state. In this work we provide an analytical method which allows for the exact calculation of the asymptotic reduced density operator and the corresponding CPE for a discrete-time quantum walk on a two-dimensional lattice. We use the von Neumann entropy of the reduced density operator as an entanglement measure. The method is applied to the case of a Hadamard walk for which the dependence of the resulting CPE on initial conditions is obtained. Initial states leading to the maximum or minimum CPE are identified and the relation between the coin or position entanglement present in the initial state of the walker and the final level of CPE is discussed. The CPE obtained from separable initial states satisfies an additivity property in terms of CPE of the corresponding one-dimensional cases. Non-local initial conditions are also considered and we find that the extreme case of an initial uniform position distribution leads to the largest CPE variation.
We study the asymptotic position distribution of general quantum walks on a lattice, including walks with a random coin, which is chosen from step to step by a general Markov chain. In the unitary (i.e., nonrandom) case, we allow any unitary operator which commutes with translations and couples only sites at a finite distance from each other. For example, a single step of the walk could be composed of any finite succession of different shift and coin operations in the usual sense, with any lattice dimension and coin dimension. We find ballistic scaling and establish a direct method for computing the asymptotic distribution of position divided by time, namely as the distribution of the discrete time analog of the group velocity. In the random case, we let a Markov chain (control process) pick in each step one of finitely many unitary walks, in the sense described above. In ballistic order, we find a nonrandom drift which depends only on the mean of the control process and not on the initial state. In diffusive scaling, the limiting distribution is asymptotically Gaussian, with a covariance matrix (diffusion matrix) depending on momentum. The diffusion matrix depends not only on the mean but also on the transition rates of the control process. In the nonrandom limit, i.e., when the coins chosen are all very close or the transition rates of the control process are small, leading to long intervals of ballistic evolution, the diffusion matrix diverges. Our method is based on spatial Fourier transforms, and the first and second order perturbation theory of the eigenvalue 1 of the transition operator for each value of the momentum.
Abstract In the present work, the evolution of a three state quantum walk without decoherence is investigated. Despite being a closed quantum system under unitary evolution, its Hilbert space can be divided in two subspaces, which enables the analysis of the subsystems (the coin or the walker) as an open system in contact with a reservoir. We calculate the asymptotic reduced density matrix of the coin space of the three-state quantum walk in an infinite line, and use that result to analyze the entanglement between the chirality, and position space. We calculate the von Neumann entropy and the entanglement temperature per mean energy of the system in the asymptotic limit.
The entanglement between the position and the coin state of an NNN-dimensional quantum walker is shown to lead to a thermodynamic theory. The entropy, in this thermodynamics, is associated with the reduced density operator for the evolution of chirality, taking a partial trace over positions. From the asymptotic reduced density matrix it is possible to define thermodynamic quantities, such as the asymptotic entanglement entropy, temperature, and Helmholz free energy. We study in detail the case of a two-dimensional quantum walk, in the case of two initial conditions: a nonseparable coin-position initial state and a separable one. The resulting entanglement temperature is presented as a function of the parameters of the system and those of the initial conditions.
The conditional shift in the evolution operator of a quantum walk generates entanglement between the coin and position degrees of freedom. This entanglement can be quantified by the von Neumman entropy of the reduced density operator (entropy of entanglement). We show analytically that for a Hadamard walk with local initial conditions the asymptotic entanglement is 0.872 for all initial coin states. When nonlocal initial conditions are considered, the asymptotic entanglement varies smoothly between almost complete entanglement and no entanglement (product state). An exact expression for the asymptotic (long-time) entanglement is obtained for initial conditions in the position subspace spanned by $\ensuremath{\mid}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1⟩$.