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arXiv:2002.08070 · Physical Review A

Complete classification of trapping coins for quantum walks on the two-dimensional square lattice

Bálint Kollár, András Gilyén, Iva Tkáčová, T. Kiss, Igor Jex, M. Štefaňák

Published Jul 7, 2020• 7 citations

Abstract

One of the unique features of discrete-time quantum walks is called trapping, meaning the inability of the quantum walker to completely escape from its initial position, although the system is translationally invariant. The effect is dependent on the dimension and the explicit form of the local coin. A four-state discrete-time quantum walk on a square lattice is defined by its unitary coin operator, acting on the four-dimensional coin Hilbert space. The well-known example of the Grover coin leads to a partial trapping, i.e., there exists some escaping initial state for which the probability of staying at the initial position vanishes. On the other hand, some other coins are known to exhibit strong trapping, where such an escaping state does not exist. We present a systematic study of coins leading to trapping, explicitly construct all such coins for discrete-time quantum walks on the two-dimensional square lattice, and classify them according to the structure of the operator and the manifestation of the trapping effect. We distinguish three types of trapping coins exhibiting distinct dynamical properties, as exemplified by the existence or nonexistence of the escaping state and the area covered by the spreading wave packet.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.102.012207

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One of the unique features of discrete-time quantum walks is called trapping, meaning the inability of the quantum walker to completely escape from its initial position, although the system is translationally invariant. The effect is dependent on the dimension and the explicit form of the local coin. A four-state discrete-time quantum walk on a square lattice is defined by its unitary coin operator, acting on the four-dimensional coin Hilbert space. The well-known example of the Grover coin leads to a partial trapping, i.e., there exists some escaping initial state for which the probability of staying at the initial position vanishes. On the other hand, some other coins are known to exhibit strong trapping, where such an escaping state does not exist. We present a systematic study of coins leading to trapping, explicitly construct all such coins for discrete-time quantum walks on the two-dimensional square lattice, and classify them according to the structure of the operator and the manifestation of the trapping effect. We distinguish three types of trapping coins exhibiting distinct dynamical properties, as exemplified by the existence or nonexistence of the escaping state and the area covered by the spreading wave packet.

Abstract Localization phenomena of quantum walks makes the propagation dynamics of a walker strikingly different from that corresponding to classical random walks. In this paper, we study the localization phenomena of four-state discrete-time quantum walks on two-dimensional lattices with coin operators as one-parameter orthogonal matrices that are also permutative, a combinatorial structure of the Grover matrix. We show that the proposed walks localize at its initial position for canonical initial coin states when the coin belongs to classes which contain the Grover matrix that we consider in this paper, however, the localization phenomena depends on the coin parameter when the class of parametric coins does not contain the Grover matrix.

Discrete time quantum walks (DTQWs) are nontrivial generalizations of random walks with a broad scope of applications. In particular, they can be used as computational primitives, and they are suitable tools for simulating other quantum systems. DTQWs usually spread ballistically due to their quantumness. In some cases, however, they can remain localized at their initial state (trapping). The trapping and other fundamental properties of DTQWs are determined by the choice of the coin operator. We introduce and analyze a type of walks driven by a coin class leading to strong trapping, complementing the known list of walks. This class of walks exhibits a number of exciting properties with possible applications ranging from light pulse trapping in a medium to topological effects and quantum search.

In this work, we extend the scattering quantum walk (SQW) framework to a lattice of energy-dependent point interactions. This yields, within the coined quantum walk (CQW) formalism, a coin operator that is directly related to the scattering matrix of zero-range potentials. The model thus provides a discrete-time quantum-walk (DTQW) analog of a periodic array of point interactions of the Kronig-Penney type, where the walker's wavenumber serves as a continuous, physically transparent control parameter for the coin operation. We analyze the spectra and the dynamics of position probability and entanglement, yielding distinct results for specific energies and point interactions. We relate the spectral structure to the spatial probability distribution and explicitly characterize the long-time entanglement behavior for each point interaction. The transmission modulus determines the quasienergy gap, bandwidth, and maximum group velocity, while also controlling the long-time coin-position entanglement for the initial state considered. The four families of one-dimensional point interactions (

δ

,

δ'

, crossed and asymmetric) realize qualitatively distinct transmission profiles and span the full range of behavior, including enhanced or strongly suppressed spreading and oscillatory entanglement.

We investigate a discrete-time quantum walk of a three-component quantum particle on a one-dimensional lattice. As coin operators, we employ parameterized rotations generated by the Gell-Mann matrices, which enable systematic tuning of the couplings between the internal components. We analyze how these couplings influence and control the dynamics by systematically exploring the position-space probability distribution across a broad region of the parameter space. To quantify the impact of different inter-component couplings, we further examine the ratio of the mean position to the variance in each half of the lattice. Our results indicates that the system supports a rich variety of transport regimes, ranging from nearly symmetric, rapidly spreading walks to strongly anisotropic dynamics with partial localization. This framework thus provides a new avenue for engineering targeted spreading and trapping behavior in multicomponent discrete-time quantum walks.

We systematically study the localization effect in discrete-time quantum walks on a honeycomb network and establish the mathematical framework. We focus on the Grover walk first and rigorously derive the limit form of the walker's state, showing it has a certain probability to be localized at the starting position. The relationship between localization and the initial coin state is concisely represented by a linear map. We also define and calculate the average probability of localization by generating random initial states. Further, coin operators varying with positions are considered and the sufficient condition for localization is discussed. We also similarly analyze another four-state Grover walk. Theoretical predictions are all in accord with numerical simulation results. Finally, our results are compared with previous works to demonstrate the unusual trapping effect of quantum walks on a honeycomb network, as well as the advantages of our method.

While completely self-avoiding quantum walks have the distinct property of leading to a trivial unidirectional transport of a quantum state, an interesting and non-trivial dynamics can be constructed by restricting the self-avoidance to a subspace of the complete Hilbert space. Here, we present a comprehensive study of three two-dimensional quantum walks, which are self-avoiding in coin space, in position space and in both, coin and position space. We discuss the properties of these walks and show that all result in delocalisation of the probability distribution for initial states which are strongly localised for a walk with a standard Grover coin operation. We also present analytical results for the evolution in the form of limit distributions for the self-avoiding walks in coin space and in both, coin and position space.