This work focuses on the study of quantum stochastic walks, which are a generalization of coherent, i. e. unitary quantum walks. Our main goal is to present a measure of a coherence of the walk. To this end, we utilize the asymptotic scaling exponent of the second moment of the walk i. e. of the mean squared distance covered by a walk. As the quantum stochastic walk model encompasses both classical random walks and quantum walks, we are interested how the continuous change from one regime to the other influences the asymptotic scaling exponent. Moreover this model allows for behavior which is not found in any of the previously mentioned model -- the model with global dissipation. We derive the probability distribution for the walker, and determine the asymptotic scaling exponent analytically, showing that ballistic regime of the walk is maintained even at large dissipation strength.
This work focuses on the study of quantum stochastic walks, which are a generalization of coherent, i. e. unitary quantum walks. Our main goal is to present a measure of a coherence of the walk. To this end, we utilize the asymptotic scaling exponent of the second moment of the walk i. e. of the mean squared distance covered by a walk. As the quantum stochastic walk model encompasses both classical random walks and quantum walks, we are interested how the continuous change from one regime to the other influences the asymptotic scaling exponent. Moreover this model allows for behavior which is not found in any of the previously mentioned model -- the model with global dissipation. We derive the probability distribution for the walker, and determine the asymptotic scaling exponent analytically, showing that ballistic regime of the walk is maintained even at large dissipation strength.
This work focuses on the study of quantum stochastic walks, which are a generalization of coherent, \ie unitary quantum walks. Our main goal is to present a measure of a coherence of the walk. To this end, we utilize the asymptotic scaling exponent of the second moment of the walk \ie of the mean squared distance covered by a walk. As the quantum stochastic walk model encompasses both classical random walks and quantum walks, we are interested how the continuous change from one regime to the other influences the asymptotic scaling exponent. Moreover this model allows for behavior which is not found in any of the previously mentioned model -- a model with global dissipation. We derive the probability distribution for the walker, and determine the asymptotic scaling exponent analytically, showing that ballistic regime of the walk is maintained even at large dissipation strength.
This work focuses on the study of quantum stochastic walks, which are a generalization of coherent, i.e. unitary quantum walks. Our main goal is to present a measure of coherence of the walk. To this end, we utilize the Hurst exponent. As the quantum stochastic walk model encompasses both classical random walks and quantum walks, we are interested how the continuous change from one regime to the other influences the Hurst exponent. Moreover this model allows for behavior which is not found in any of the previously mentioned model -- the model with global dissipation. We derive the probability distribution for the walker, and determine the Hurst exponent analytically, showing that ballistic regime of the walk is maintained even at large dissipation strength.
We introduce the quantum stochastic walk (QSW), which determines the evolution of a generalized quantum-mechanical walk on a graph that obeys a quantum stochastic equation of motion. Using an axiomatic approach, we specify the rules for all possible quantum, classical, and quantum-stochastic transitions from a vertex as defined by its connectivity. We show how the family of possible QSWs encompasses both the classical random walk (CRW) and the quantum walk (QW) as special cases but also includes more general probability distributions. As an example, we study the QSW on a line and the glued tree of depth three to observe the behavior of the QW-to-CRW transition.
In this thesis we study the propagation behavior of quantum particles which perform discrete-time quantum walks on spatial lattices.By definition, quantum walks are discrete-time evolutions such that a single time step couples only neighboring lattice sites.Additionally, we assume in this thesis that the dynamical law commutes with all translations of the spatial lattice, that is we consider translationally invariant quantum walks.The results presented in the following are separated into two parts: The first part is devoted to the study of single-particle quantum walks, and in the second part we investigate quantum walks of several particles.Single-particle quantum walks: Our aim is to study the asymptotic behavior of particles undergoing general translationally invariant quantum walks.Employing perturbation theory, we establish a direct method for computing the asymptotic distribution of the particle's position rescaled by an appropriate time-dependent factor.If the time evolution is implemented by a unitary operator commuting with all lattice translations and with empty pure point spectrum, we find linear scaling of the asymptotic position distribution.In this case, the asymptotic distribution of position divided by time is determined by the analog of the group velocity.If, on the other hand, the quantum walk is subject to decoherence, we expect that it behaves like a classical random walk.We provide explicit criteria under which this intuitive statement is true, that is, the asymptotic scaling of the particle's position distribution is that of a diffusion process.We find that the asymptotic distribution of position divided by the square root of time is a mixture of Gaussians in this case.However, we also provide examples of decoherent quantum walks which violate these criteria, and exhibit linear scaling of the asymptotic position distribution. Many-particle quantum walks:We investigate unitary quantum walks of two particles with collisional interactions.That is, the particles perform independent single-particle quantum walks if they are at distinct lattice sites, and an interaction takes place if both particles occupy the same lattice site.We prove that such quantum walks generically exhibit a molecular binding effect between the particles.More precisely, for a measurement of the particles' positions we have a bound on the probability to obtain a certain result which decays exponentially with the particles' distance.As a preparatory step for this analysis, we consider single-particle quantum walks with point defects, and provide a method to compute their eigenvalues in the spectral gap of the quantum walk without defect.We further generalize our model to arbitrary numbers of particles and study the behavior of local excitations in many-particle quantum walks.
How rapidly does order give way to randomness, and can quantum coherence accelerate this process? We address these questions through the paradigmatic problem of card shuffling, formulated as a random walk on the symmetric group Sn. We first recast the random-transposition walk studied by Diaconis and Shahshahani, as well as more general walks generated by conjugacy classes of Sn, in continuous time. We then identify the transition matrix of each classical walk with a permutation Hamiltonian generating a corresponding unitary quantum walk. Purely unitary evolution, however, does not generically converge to the uniform distribution in the classical sense of mixing: coherence preserves information rather than erasing it. We therefore embed the problem into a quantum stochastic walk, where coherent dynamics competes with the dissipative process responsible for classical mixing. In this setting, quantum coherence assists randomization. We prove that it can only decrease the distance from the uniform distribution in the computational basis and can therefore accelerate mixing. An analysis of the slowest mode yields a criterion for the coupling strength required to produce an appreciable speedup. Finally, numerical results reveal a scaling collapse of the ratio between quantum and classical mixing times onto a simple one-parameter form. Our results illustrate how coherence and dissipation can cooperate in the emergence of randomness in walks on permutation groups.
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.