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arXiv:2601.01071

Molchanov's Formula and Quantum Walks: A Probabilistic Approach

Hoang Vu

quant-phmath-phSubmitted Jan 3, 2026• Announced Jan 6, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

This paper establishes a robust link between quantum dynamics and classical ones by deriving probabilistic representation for both continuous time and discrete time quantum walks. We first adapt Molchanov formula, originally employed in the study of Schrodinger operators on multidimensional integer lattice, to characterize the evolution of continuous time quantum walks. Extending this framework, we develop a probabilistic method to represent discrete time quantum walks on an infinite integer line, bypassing the locality constraints that typically inhibit direct application of Molchanov formula. The validity of our representation is empirically confirmed through a benchmark analysis of the Hadamard walk, demonstrating high fidelity with traditional unitary evolution. Our results suggest that this probabilistic lens offer a powerful alternative for learning multidimensional quantum walks and provides new analytical pathways for investigating quantum systems via classical stochastic processes.

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This paper establishes a robust link between quantum dynamics and classical ones by deriving probabilistic representation for both continuous time and discrete time quantum walks. We first adapt Molchanov formula, originally employed in the study of Schrodinger operators on multidimensional integer lattice, to characterize the evolution of continuous time quantum walks. Extending this framework, we develop a probabilistic method to represent discrete time quantum walks on an infinite integer line, bypassing the locality constraints that typically inhibit direct application of Molchanov formula. The validity of our representation is empirically confirmed through a benchmark analysis of the Hadamard walk, demonstrating high fidelity with traditional unitary evolution. Our results suggest that this probabilistic lens offer a powerful alternative for learning multidimensional quantum walks and provides new analytical pathways for investigating quantum systems via classical stochastic processes.
Building upon the pioneering framework of Vu (2026), we construct a probabilistic representation for three-state discrete-time quantum walks on integer lattices and validate it through empirical examples. Furthermore, we establish that this representation converges to the continuum solution of multi-state Dirac partial differential equations. Broadly, our findings demonstrate that this probabilistic paradigm serves as a robust alternative for simulating higher-dimensional quantum walks, opening new theoretical avenues to analyze quantum dynamics using classical stochastic processes.
The quantum walks in the lattice spaces are represented as unitary evolutions. We find a generator for the evolution and apply it to further understand the walks. We first extend the discrete time quantum walks to continuous time walks. Then we construct the quantum Markov semigroup for quantum walks and characterize it in an invariant subalgebra. In the meanwhile, we obtain the limit distributions of the quantum walks in one-dimension with a proper scaling, which was obtained by Konno by a different method.
Abstract We explicitly connect (discrete-time) quantum walks on Z\mathbb {Z} Z Z with a four-state Markov additive process via a Feynman-type formula (13). Using this representation, we derive a relation between the spectral decomposition of the Markov additive process and the limiting density of the homogeneous quantum walk. In addition, we consider a space-time rescaling of quantum walks, which leads to a system of quantum transport PDEs in continuous time and space with a phase interaction term. Our probabilistic representation for this type of PDE offers an efficient Monte Carlo computational technique.
Quantum walks can be defined in two quite distinct ways: discrete-time and continuous-time quantum walks (DTQWs and CTQWs). For classical random walks, there is a natural sense in which continuous-time walks are a limit of discrete-time walks. Quantum mechanically, in the discrete-time case, an additional ``coin space'' must be appended for the walk to have nontrivial time evolution. Continuous-time quantum walks, however, have no such constraints. This means that there is no completely straightforward way to treat a CTQW as a limit of a DTQW, as can be done in the classical case. Various approaches to this problem have been taken in the past. We give a construction for walks on ddd-regular, ddd-colorable graphs when the coin flip operator is Hermitian: from a standard DTQW we construct a family of discrete-time walks with a well-defined continuous-time limit on a related graph. One can think of this limit as a ``coined'' continuous-time walk. We show that these CTQWs share some properties with coined DTQWs. In particular, we look at a spatial search by a DTQW over the two-dimensional (2D) torus (a grid with periodic boundary conditions) of size $\sqrt{N}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\sqrt{N}$, where it was shown that a coined DTQW can search in time O(NlogN)O(\sqrt{N}logN)O(N​logN), but a standard CTQW takes $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}(N)$ time to search for a marked element. The continuous limit of the DTQW search over the 2D torus exhibits the O(NlogN)O(\sqrt{N}logN)O(N​logN) scaling, like the coined walk it is derived from. We also look at the effects of graph symmetry on the limiting walk, and show that the properties are similar to those of the DTQW as shown in Krovi and Brun, Phys. Rev. A 75, 062332 (2007).
The quantum walk is a method for conceptualizing and designing quantum computing algorithms and it comes in two forms: the continuous-time and discrete-time quantum walk. The thesis is organized into three parts, each of which looks to develop the concept and uses of the quantum walk. The first part is the theory of the quantum walk. This includes definitions and considerations for the various incarnations of the discrete-time quantum walk and a discussion on the general method for connecting the continuous-time and discrete-time versions. As a result, it is shown that most versions of the discrete-time quantum walk can be put into a general form and this can be used to simulate any continuous-time quantum walk. The second part uses these results for a hypothetical application. The application presented is a search algorithm that appears to scale in the time for completion independent of the size of the search space. This behavior is then elaborated upon and shown to have general qualitative agreement with simulations to within the approximations that are made. The third part introduces a method of implementation. Given a universal quantum computer, the method is discussed and shown to simulate an arbitrary discrete-time quantum walk. Some of the benefits of this method are that half the unitary evolution can be achieved without the use of any gates and there may be some possibility for error detection. The three parts combined suggest a possible experiment, given a quantum computing scheme of sufficient robustness.
We survey the equations of continuous-time quantum walks on simple one-dimensional lattices, which include the finite and infinite lines and the finite cycle, and compare them with the classical continuous-time Markov chains. The focus of our expository article is on analyzing these processes using the Laplace transform on the stochastic recurrences. The resulting time evolution equations, classical versus quantum, are strikingly similar in form, although dissimilar in behavior. We also provide comparisons with analyses performed using spectral methods.