Quantum walk has played an important role in development of quantum algorithms and protocols for quantum simulations. The speedup observed in quantum walk algorithms is attributed to quantum interference of spreading wave packet in position space. Similarly, localization in quantum walk due to disorder is also attributed to quantum interference effect. Therefore, it is intriguing to have a closer look and understand the way quantum interference manifests in different forms of quantum walk dynamics. Here we will use interference measure to quantify the interference in position space and coin space, together and independently. This interference measure helps us to differentiate localisation seen in quantum walks due to different forms of disorder and topological effects. We also shown that the interference measure in the coin space alone can serve as an indicator of the spatially localized quantum state. Comparing the result of interference and correlated coherence with the entanglement dynamics we show that all the intricate features of entanglement is captured by correlated coherence. This will give us a better understanding of role of quantum interference in quantum dynamics and its effect on entanglement. With the control over quantum walk dynamics and quantum interference, exploring the possibility of using interference as resource will be of immediate interest.
We investigate the evolution dynamics of inhomogeneous discrete-time one-dimensional quantum walks displaying long-range correlations in both space and time. The associated quantum coin operators of internal states are built to exhibit random inhomogeneity distribution of long-range correlations embedded in the time evolution protocol through a fractional Brownian motion with spectrum following a power-law behavior, S(k)∼1/k^{ν}. From extensive numerical simulations with averages over a large number of independent realizations of the phases of quantum coins, the power-law correlated disorder encoded in the coin phases is shown to give rise to a wide variety of spreading patterns of the qubit states, from localized to subdiffusive, diffusive, and superdiffusive (including ballistic) behavior, depending on the relative strength of the parameters driving the correlation degree. Dispersion control is possible in one-dimensional discrete-time quantum walks by tuning the long-range correlation properties assigned to the inhomogeneous quantum coin operator.
Many disordered systems show a superdiffusive dynamics, intermediate between the diffusive one, typical of a classical stochastic process, and the so-called ballistic behavior, which is generally expected for the spreading in a quantum process. We have experimentally investigated the superdiffusive behavior of a quantum walk, whose dynamics can be related to energy transport phenomena, with a resolution which is high enough to clearly distinguish between different disorder regimes. By our experimental setup, the region between ballistic and diffusive spreading can be effectively scanned by suitably setting few degrees of freedom and without applying any decoherence to the quantum walk evolution.
Quantum walk research has mainly focused on evolutions due to repeated applications of time-independent unitary coin operators. However, the idea of controlling the single particle evolution using time-dependent unitary coins has still been a subject of multiple studies as it not only hosts interesting possibilities for quantum information processing but also opens a much richer array of phenomena including static and dynamic localizations. So far, such studies have been performed only for single quantum walkers. In case of multi-walker systems, time-dependent coins may generate measurable phenomena not described by the single-particle model, due to entanglement and interaction among the walkers. In this context, we present here a thorough numerical study of an one dimensional system of two quantum walkers exhibiting rich collective dynamics controlled by simple time-dependent unitary coins proposed in [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{80}, 042332(2009)] and [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{73},062304(2006)]. We study how the interplay of coin time-dependence, simple interaction schemes, entanglement and the relative phase between the coin states of the particles influences the evolution of the quantum walk. The results show that the system offers a rich variety of collective dynamical behavior while being controlled by time dependent coins. In particular, we find and characterize fascinating two-body localization phenomena with tunable quasiperiodic dynamics of correlations and entanglements which are quantities of quantum origin.
We study discrete-time quantum walks with Fourier, Grover, and Hadamard coin operators on disordered square lattices, alongside classical random walks. Edges in the lattice are absent with a probability,
p. In this case, both classical and quantum walks exhibit an essentially identical degradation of transport. We then study a general version of this model, in which the existing edges are retained. However, the absent edges are no longer absent, but now become partially transmitting, with a transmission coefficient
f. We find that the response is now quite sensitive to the walk protocol and coin symmetry. The classical walk exhibits asymptotic stability of the anomalous diffusion exponent,
β(t). In comparison, quantum walks exhibit a monotonically decaying
β(t) beyond the initial transient regime, leading to the absence of quantum diffusion in two dimensions. We map the transport regimes in the
(f,p) plane and identify the contour for
β=1, which separates the subdiffusive and superdiffusive regimes. We also examine the effective diffusion coefficient, the inverse participation ratio, and the first two moments of edge transmission. We restrict ourselves to analyzing bulk propagation prior to finite-size boundary reflections. The results indicate that quantum transport depends significantly on coin-specific interference and cannot be fully described by transmission statistics alone.
The dynamical and static disordered quantum walks were extensively studied recently. It is found that, for the dynamical disorder case, the transport behavior of particles is diffusive, and for the static disorder case the transport behavior is localized. In this work, we study the effect of quantum coins on the transport behaviors of the binary disordered quantum walks. We find that once the coins satisfy certain conditions, the sub-ballistic spreading could be found in binary dynamical disorder quantum walks, and the sub-ballistic, diffusive and sub-diffusive spreadings could be found in binary static disorder quantum walks. We obtain the necessary conditions for those abnormal diffusive behaviors.