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arXiv:2308.01014

Solitons in a photonic nonlinear quantum walk: lessons from the continuum

Andreu Anglés-Castillo, Armando Pérez, Eugenio Roldán

Published Aug 2, 2023• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We analyse a nonlinear QW model which can be experimentally implemented using the components of the electric field on an optical nonlinear Kerr medium, which translates into a rotation in the coin operator, with an angle which depends (in a nonlinear fashion) on the state of the walker. This simple dependence makes it easy to consider the space-time continuum limit of the evolution equation, which takes the form of a nonlinear Dirac equation. The analysis of this continuum limit allows us, under some approximations, to gain some insight into the nature of soliton structures, which is illustrated by our numerical calculations. These solitons are stable structures whose trajectories can be modulated by choosing the appropriate initial conditions. We have also studied the stability of solitons when they are subject to an additional phase that simulates an external electric field, and also explored if they are formed in higher dimensional spaces.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2308.01014

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We analyse a nonlinear QW model which can be experimentally implemented using the components of the electric field on an optical nonlinear Kerr medium, which translates into a rotation in the coin operator, with an angle which depends (in a nonlinear fashion) on the state of the walker. This simple dependence makes it easy to consider the space-time continuum limit of the evolution equation, which takes the form of a nonlinear Dirac equation. The analysis of this continuum limit allows us, under some approximations, to gain some insight into the nature of soliton structures, which is illustrated by our numerical calculations. These solitons are stable structures whose trajectories can be modulated by choosing the appropriate initial conditions. We have also studied the stability of solitons when they are subject to an additional phase that simulates an external electric field, and also explored if they are formed in higher dimensional spaces.
Abstract We propose a nonlinear quantum walk model inspired in a photonic implementation in which the polarization state of the light field plays the role of the coin-qubit. In particular, we take profit of the nonlinear polarization rotation occurring in optical media with Kerr nonlinearity, which allows to implement a nonlinear coin operator, one that depends on the state of the coin-qubit. We consider the space-time continuum limit of the evolution equation, which takes the form of a nonlinear Dirac equation. The analysis of this continuum limit allows us to gain some insight into the existence of different solitonic structures, such as bright and dark solitons. We illustrate several properties of these solitons with numerical calculations, including the effect on them of an additional phase simulating an external electric field.
Quantum walk (QW) provides a versatile tool to study fundamental physics and also to make a variety of practical applications. We here start with the recent idea of nonlinear QW and show that introducing nonlinearity to QW can lead to a wealth of remarkable possibilities, e.g., simulating nonlinear quantum dynamics, thus enhancing the applicability of QW above the existing level for a universal quantum simulator. As an illustration, we show that the dynamics of a nonlinear Dirac particle can be simulated on an optical nonlinear QW platform implemented with a measurement-based-feedforward scheme. The nonlinear evolution induced by the feed-forward introduces a self-coupling mechanism to (otherwise linear) Dirac particles, which accordingly behave as a soliton. We particularly consider two kinds of nonlinear Dirac equations, one with a scalar-type self-coupling (Gross-Neveu model) and the other with a vector-type one (Thirring model), respectively. Using their known stationary solutions, we confirm that our nonlinear QW framework is capable of exhibiting characteristic features of a soliton. Furthermore, we show that the nonlinear QW enables us to observe and control an enhancement and suppression of the ballistic diffusion.
A discrete-time quantum walk (QW) is essentially a unitary operator driving the evolution of a single particle on the lattice. Some QWs have familiar physics PDEs as their continuum limit. Some slight generalization of them (allowing for prior encoding and larger neighbourhoods) even have the curved spacetime Dirac equation, as their continuum limit. In the (1+1)− dimensional massless case, this equation decouples as scalar transport equations with tunable speeds. We characterise and construct all those QWs that lead to scalar transport with tunable speeds. The local coin operator dictates that speed; we provide concrete techniques to tune the speed of propagation, by making use only of a finite number of coin operators-differently from previous models, in which the speed of propagation depends upon a continuous parameter of the quantum coin. The interest of such a discretization is twofold : to allow for easier experimental implementations on the one hand, and to evaluate ways of quantizing the metric field, on the other.
The dynamics of nonlinear flip-flop quantum walk with amplitude-dependent phase shifts with pertubing potential barrier is investigated. Through the adjustment between uniform local perturbations and a Kerr-like nonlinearity of the medium we find a rich set of dynamic profiles. We will show the existence of different Hadamard quantum walking regimes, including those with mobile soliton-like structures or self-trapped states. The latter is predominant for perturbations with amplitudes that tend to $\ensuremath{\varphi}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\pi}/2$. In this system, the qubit shows an unusual behavior as we increase the amplitudes of the potential barriers and displays a monotonic decrease in the self-trapping ${\ensuremath{\varphi}}_{c}$ with respect to the nonlinear parameter. A chaotic-like regime becomes predominant for intermediate nonlinearity values. Furthermore, we show that, by changing the quantum coins ($\ensuremath{\theta}$) a nontrivial dynamic arises, where coins close to Pauli-XXX drives the system to a regime with predominant soliton-like structures, while the chaotic behavior are restricted to a narrow region in the $\ensuremath{\chi}\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\varphi}$ plane. We believe that is possible to implement and observe the proprieties of this model in an integrated photonic system.
The Q-function of the quantum soliton in a fibre is derived in a new form suitable for the assessment of the possibilities for experimental observations of specific quantum-soliton effects. The characteristic effects of soliton evolution are associated with a cubic term in the nonlinear phase angle and appear at distances well beyond the attenuation length (long range). At the accessible distances, the nonlinear dynamics of a fundamental soliton follows essentially the single-mode dynamics (short and middle range). However, for the higher-order solitons, the form of the evolution parameter suggests strong deviations of soliton dynamics from the single-mode with a square of soliton number. The use of enhanced-nonlinearity fibres and higher-order solitons might make the experimental studies of the specific quantum-soliton features more viable.
A discrete-time Quantum Walk (QW) is essentially a unitary operator driving the evolution of a single particle on the lattice. Some QWs admit a continuum limit, leading to familiar PDEs (e.g. the Dirac equation). In this paper, we study the continuum limit of a wide class of QWs, and show that it leads to an entire class of PDEs, encompassing the Hamiltonian form of the massive Dirac equation in (1+1)(1+1)(1+1) curved spacetime. Therefore a certain QW, which we make explicit, provides us with a unitary discrete toy model of a test particle in curved spacetime, in spite of the fixed background lattice. Mathematically we have introduced two novel ingredients for taking the continuum limit of a QW, but which apply to any quantum cellular automata: encoding and grouping.