Simple algebraic cellular automata and a diffusion confinement are used to model quantum behavior of a relativistic particle in a 1-D box. Comparisons and contrasts are drawn between such a quantum cellular automaton (QCA) and both orthodox and unorthodox interpretations of quantum mechanics. The persistent tension between deterministic pictures and probabilistic descriptions of quantum reality are clarified for the case of a 1-D quantum particle viewed as a cellular automaton surging for survival in space and time.
Simple algebraic cellular automata and a diffusion confinement are used to model quantum behavior of a relativistic particle in a 1-D box. Comparisons and contrasts are drawn between such a quantum cellular automaton (QCA) and both orthodox and unorthodox interpretations of quantum mechanics. The persistent tension between deterministic pictures and probabilistic descriptions of quantum reality are clarified for the case of a 1-D quantum particle viewed as a cellular automaton surging for survival in space and time.
We propose that a quantum particle in a potential in one space dimension can be described by a probabilistic cellular automaton. While the simple updating rule of the automaton is deterministic, the probabilistic description is introduced by a probability distribution over initial conditions. The proposed automaton involves right- and left-movers, jumping from one cell to a neighboring one. They change their direction of motion at each randomly distributed disorder or scattering point. The continuum limit of an infinite number of cells yields a Dirac equation, and in the non-relativistic limit the familiar Schrödinger equation, with potential determined by the spacetime-distribution of scattering points. These equations describe the time evolution of the probabilistic information for the position of the particle. All quantum rules for observables, both for discrete possible measurement values and continuous expectation values, follow from the classical statistical laws.
Quantum cellular automata (QCA) constitute space and time homogeneous discrete models for quantum field theories (QFTs). Although QFTs are defined without reference to particles, computations are done in terms of Feynman diagrams, which are explicitly interpreted in terms of interacting particles. Similarly, the easiest QCA to construct are quantum lattice gas automata (QLGA). A natural question then is, which QCA are not QLGA? Here we construct a nontrivial example of such a QCA; it provides a simple model in 1+1 dimensions with no particle interpretation at the scale where the QCA dynamics are homogeneous.
We define quantum cellular automata as infinite quantum lattice systems with discrete time dynamics, such that the time step commutes with lattice translations and has strictly finite propagation speed. In contrast to earlier definitions this allows us to give an explicit characterization of all local rules generating such automata. The same local rules also generate the global time step for automata with periodic boundary conditions. Our main structure theorem asserts that any quantum cellular automaton is structurally reversible, i.e., that it can be obtained by applying two blockwise unitary operations in a generalized Margolus partitioning scheme. This implies that, in contrast to the classical case, the inverse of a nearest neighbor quantum cellular automaton is again a nearest neighbor automaton. We present several construction methods for quantum cellular automata, based on unitaries commuting with their translates, on the quantization of (arbitrary) reversible classical cellular automata, on quantum circuits, and on Clifford transformations with respect to a description of the single cells by finite Weyl systems. Moreover, we indicate how quantum random walks can be considered as special cases of cellular automata, namely by restricting a quantum lattice gas automaton with local particle number conservation to the single particle sector.
A natural architecture for nanoscale quantum computation is that of a quantum cellular automaton. Motivated by this observation, in this paper we begin an investigation of exactly unitary cellular automata. After proving that there can be no nontrivial, homogeneous, local, unitary, scalar cellular automaton in one dimension, we weaken the homogeneity condition and show that there are nontrivial, exactly unitary, partitioning cellular automata. We find a one parameter family of evolution rules which are best interpreted as those for a one particle quantum automaton. This model is naturally reformulated as a two component cellular automaton which we demonstrate to limit to the Dirac equation. We describe two generalizations of this automaton, the second of which, to multiple interacting particles, is the correct definition of a quantum lattice gas. KEY WORDS: quantum cellular automaton; quantum lattice gas; quantum computation. to appear in J. Stat. Phys.
A quantum cellular automaton (QCA) is a unitary discrete-time evolution of a quantum many-body system, which can be described as a dynamics system , where A is any matrix and is a unitary operator representing the global evolution of QCA. And QCAs are characterized by locality (or causality). Among them, quantum circuits are the special classes of QCAs, which use unitary operators to control and transform the initial quantum state of qubit into a final quantum state, quantum circuits are special and widely studied in quantum information. A group is a set of elements combined with an operation, which satisfies associativity, identity and invertibility. This article shows that group theory provides the right language for studying the relation between QCAs and quantum circuits among them.
Axiomatic definitions of Quantum Cellular Automata (QCA) are foundational in discrete space-time models of physics. Templates of axiomatic QCA serve as primary points of investigations concerning properties, structural results, and classes of QCA that are potentially significant for quantum algorithms and simulations. We examine, from a representation theory standpoint, the relation between the templates corresponding to the Schr\{o}dinger and the Heisenberg pictures of evolution for QCA over finite, unbounded configurations.