There are presently two models for quantum walks on graphs. The ``coined'' walk uses discrete-time steps, and contains, besides the particle making the walk, a second quantum system, the coin, that determines the direction in which the particle will move. The continuous walk operates with continuous time. Here a third model for quantum walks is proposed, which is based on an analogy to optical interferometers. It is a discrete-time model, and the unitary operator that advances the walk one step depends only on the local structure of the graph on which the walk is taking place. This type of walk also allows us to introduce elements, such as phase shifters, that have no counterpart in classical random walks. Several examples are discussed.
We investigate the genuinely quantum features of continuous-time quantum walks by combining a single-time and a multi-time quantifier of nonclassicality. On the one hand, we consider the quantum-classical dynamical distance
DQC(t), which measures the departure of the time-evolved quantum state of a continuous-time quantum walk from the classical state of a random walk on the same graph. On the other, we analyse the joint probability distributions associated with sequential measurements of the walker's position, assessing their violation of the classical Kolmogorov consistency conditions via a dedicated quantifier
Kˉ(t). We demonstrate a quadratic short-time scaling of
Kˉ(t), which differs from the known linear scaling of
DQC(t), but, as the latter, is fully determined by the degree of the initially occupied node and is independent of the global graph topology. At longer times, instead,
Kˉ(t) exhibits a pronounced topology-driven behavior: it is strongly suppressed on complete graphs while remaining finite and oscillatory on cycles, in contrast with the almost topology-independent asymptotics of
DQC(t). We then extend the analysis to Markovian open-system dynamics, focusing on dephasing in the position basis (Haken-Strobl model) and in the energy basis (intrinsic decoherence). Site dephasing drives both quantifiers to zero, with the decay of
Kˉ(t) controlled by the spectral gap of the corresponding Lindblad generator. By contrast, energy-basis dephasing preserves a finite asymptotic value of
Kˉ(t), depending on the overlap structure of the Laplacian eigenspaces with the site basis.
In this paper, we consider multi-dimensional birth and death chains and continuous time quantum walks (CTQWs) related to them. For continuous time quantum walk (CTQW) related to our forms of multi-dimensional birth and death chains, we obtain the time- scaled independence between multiple dimensions about the transition probability of CTQW. By using this feature, we analyze CTQW on the path graph, which is related to 1-dimensional Ehrenfest model. We also have a random variable which is related to our models and converges to the standard Gaussian distribution.
Quantum walks on graphs are ubiquitous in quantum computing finding a myriad of applications. Likewise, random walks on graphs are a fundamental building block for a large number of algorithms with diverse applications. While the relationship between quantum and random walks has been recently discussed in specific scenarios, this work establishes a formal equivalence between the two processes on arbitrary finite graphs and general conditions for shift and coin operators. It requires empowering random walks with time heterogeneity, where the transition probability of the walker is non-uniform and time dependent. The equivalence is obtained by equating the probability of measuring the quantum walk on a given node of the graph and the probability that the random walk is at that same node, for all nodes and time steps. The first result establishes procedure for a stochastic matrix sequence to induce a random walk that yields the exact same vertex probability distribution sequence of any given quantum walk, including the scenario with multiple interfering walkers. The second result establishes a similar procedure in the opposite direction. Given any random walk, a time-dependent quantum walk with the exact same vertex probability distribution is constructed. Interestingly, the matrices constructed by the first procedure allows for a different simulation approach for quantum walks where node samples respect neighbor locality and convergence is guaranteed by the law of large numbers, enabling efficient (polynomial-time) sampling of quantum graph trajectories. Furthermore, the complexity of constructing this sequence of matrices is discussed in the general case.
In this paper, continuous-time quantum walk on hypercube is discussed in view of Cartesian product structure. We find that the [Formula: see text]-fold Cartesian power of the complete graph [Formula: see text] is the [Formula: see text]-dimensional hypercube, which give us new ideas for the study of quantum walk on hypercube. Combining the product structure, the spectral distribution of the graph and the quantum decomposition of the adjacency matrix, the probability amplitudes of the continuous-time quantum walker’s position at time [Formula: see text] are given, and it is discussed that the probability distribution for the continuous-time case is uniform when [Formula: see text]. The application of this product structure greatly improves the study of quantum walk on complex graphs, which has far-reaching influence and great significance.
We introduce a continuous-time quantum walk on an ultrametric space corresponding to the set of p-adic integers and compute its time-averaged probability distribution. It is shown that localization occurs for any location of the ultrametric space for the walk. This result presents a striking contrast to the classical random walk case. Moreover, we clarify a difference between the ultrametric space and other graphs, such as cycle graph, line, hypercube and complete graph, for the localization of the quantum case. Our quantum walk may be useful for a quantum search algorithm on a tree-like hierarchical structure.