Quantum walk on the line: Entanglement and nonlocal initial conditions (9 pages)

Nikola Paunković, Yasser Omar

Gonzalo Abal, R. Siri, A. Romanelli +1 more

The conditional shift in the evolution operator of a quantum walk generates entanglement between the coin and position degrees of freedom. This entanglement can be quantified by the von Neumman entropy of the reduced density operator (entropy of entanglement). We show analytically that for a Hadamard walk with local initial conditions the asymptotic entanglement is 0.872 for all initial coin states. When nonlocal initial conditions are considered, the asymptotic entanglement varies smoothly between almost complete entanglement and no entanglement (product state). An exact expression for the asymptotic (long-time) entanglement is obtained for initial conditions in the position subspace spanned by $\ensuremath{\mid}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1⟩$.

J. G. Cramer

Lana Sheridan, Nikola Paunković, Yasser Omar +1 more

We introduce the idea of a quantum walk with two particles and study it for the case of a discrete time walk on a line. We consider both separable and maximally entangled initial conditions, and show how the entanglement and the relative phase between the states describing the coin degree of freedom of each particle will influence the evolution of the quantum walk. In particular, these factors will have consequences for the distance between the particles and the probability of finding them at a given point, yielding results that cannot be obtained from a separable initial state, be it pure or mixed. Finally, we review briefly proposals for implementations.

Ivan Deutsch, Paul M. Alsing, Barry C. Sanders +1 more

A. Romanelli

The asymptotic behavior of the quantum walk on the line is investigated, focusing on the probability distribution of chirality independently of position. It is shown analytically that this distribution has a longtime limit that is stationary and depends on the initial conditions. This result is unexpected in the context of the unitary evolution of the quantum walk as it is usually linked to a Markovian process. The asymptotic value of the entanglement between the coin and the position is determined by the chirality distribution. For given asymptotic values of both the entanglement and the chirality distribution, it is possible to find the corresponding initial conditions within a particular class of spatially extended Gaussian distributions.