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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

A statistical and comparative study of quantum walks under weak measurements and weak values regimes

Debabrata Ghoshal, Marco O. Lanzagorta, Salvador Elías Venegas-Andraca

Published May 13, 2011• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum walks have been studied under several regimes. Motivated by experimental results on quantum weak measurements and weak values as well as by the need to develop new insights for quantum algorithm development, we are extending our knowledge by studying the behavior of quantum walks under the regime of quantum weak measurements and weak values of pre- and postselected measurements (QWWM hereinafter). In particular, we investigate the limiting position probability distribution and several statistical measures (such as standard deviation) of a QWWM on an infinite line, and compare such results with corresponding classical and quantum walks position probability distributions and statistical measures, stressing the differences provided by weak measurements and weak values with respect to results computed by using canonical observables. We start by producing a concise introduction to quantum weak values and quantum weak measurements. We then introduce definitions as well as both analytical and numerical results for a QWWM under Hadamard evolution and extend our analysis to quantum evolution ruled by general unitary operators. Moreover, we propose a definition and focus on the properties of mixing time of QWWM on an infinite line, followed by a comparison of known corresponding results for classical and quantum walks mixing times. We finish this paper by presenting a plausible experimental implementation of a QWWM.

DOI
10.1117/12.885119

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Quantum walks have been studied under several regimes. Motivated by experimental results on quantum weak measurements and weak values as well as by the need to develop new insights for quantum algorithm development, we are extending our knowledge by studying the behavior of quantum walks under the regime of quantum weak measurements and weak values of pre- and postselected measurements (QWWM hereinafter). In particular, we investigate the limiting position probability distribution and several statistical measures (such as standard deviation) of a QWWM on an infinite line, and compare such results with corresponding classical and quantum walks position probability distributions and statistical measures, stressing the differences provided by weak measurements and weak values with respect to results computed by using canonical observables. We start by producing a concise introduction to quantum weak values and quantum weak measurements. We then introduce definitions as well as both analytical and numerical results for a QWWM under Hadamard evolution and extend our analysis to quantum evolution ruled by general unitary operators. Moreover, we propose a definition and focus on the properties of mixing time of QWWM on an infinite line, followed by a comparison of known corresponding results for classical and quantum walks mixing times. We finish this paper by presenting a plausible experimental implementation of a QWWM.
Our previous work brought some interesting results of the discrete Quantum Walks in the regime of Weak Measurement (QWWM or QWWV). Using the knowledge of such results of QWWM, we are now exploring the search algorithms and investigating the factors associated with such walk. The study of such factors like dimensionality, connectivity of the dataset and the strength of disorder or percolation are already studied by others in the context of general quantum walks. It is our interest to show the similarities and/or differences of such factors of general quantum walks with QWWV. The subject of decoherence in quantum walks is another challenging research topic at present. We are also exploring the topic of decoherence in QWWM or QWWV.
Weak values, emerging from weak measurements in pre- and postselection, exhibit complex-valued properties, enabling the direct characterization of quantum systems. However, conventional weak values do not account for system evolution, restricting their capability to capture quantum dynamical information. To overcome this limitation, we introduce the process weak value (PWV), which incorporates quantum evolution between observables during pre- and postselection. By establishing a connection between PWVs and the matrix elements of unitary operators, we develop a theoretical framework for the direct characterization of quantum processes. Our experimental validation encompasses single-photon and two-photon unitary processes, as well as non-Hermitian parity-time symmetric quantum processes. Compared to standard quantum process tomography, our method reduces the required bases for state preparation and measurements while circumventing complex reconstruction algorithms, enhancing efficiency and scalability. Our PWV formalism opens avenues for broader foundational investigations of weak measurements and enables efficient applications in characterizing sophisticated quantum processes.
We address the statistics of continuous weak linear measurement on a few-state quantum system that is subject to a conditioned quantum evolution. For a conditioned evolution, both the initial and final states of the system are fixed: the latter is achieved by the postselection in the end of the evolution. The statistics may drastically differ from the nonconditioned case, and the interference between initial and final states can be observed in the probability distributions of measurement outcomes as well as in the average values exceeding the conventional range of nonconditioned averages. We develop a proper formalism to compute the distributions of measurement outcomes, and evaluate and discuss the distributions in experimentally relevant setups. We demonstrate the manifestations of the interference between initial and final states in various regimes. We consider analytically simple examples of nontrivial probability distributions. We reveal peaks (or dips) at half-quantized values of the measurement outputs. We discuss in detail the case of zero overlap between initial and final states demonstrating anomalously big average outputs and sudden jump in time-integrated output. We present and discuss the numerical evaluation of the probability distribution aiming at extending the analytical results and describing a realistic experimental situation of a qubit in the regime of resonant fluorescence.
Since weak measurements are known to produce measurement values that can be much larger than the maximal eigenvalues of the measured observable, it is an interesting question how this enhancement of the measurement signal relates to the sensitivity of quantum measurements as investigated in the field of quantum metrology. In this presentation, it is pointed out that the estimation of a small interaction parameter using weak measurements actually corresponds to standard quantum metrology, where the logarithmic derivatives of the final measurement probabilities are proportional to the corresponding weak values. The analysis of the general weak measurement formalism then shows that extreme weak values do not improve the sensitivity. Instead, all final measurements with real weak values have the same sensitivity as a final measurement of the eigenvalues. This result supports the view that real weak values can be interpreted as precise, zero uncertainty estimates of a quantum observable, despite their deviation from the eigenvalues of the corresponding operator.
The development of quantum walks in the context of quantum computation, as generalisations of random walk techniques, has led rapidly to several new quantum algorithms. These all follow a unitary quantum evolution, apart from the final measurement. Since logical qubits in a quantum computer must be protected from decoherence by error correction, there is no need to consider decoherence at the level of algorithms. Nonetheless, enlarging the range of quantum dynamics to include non-unitary evolution provides a wider range of possibilities for tuning the properties of quantum walks. For example, small amounts of decoherence in a quantum walk on the line can produce more uniform spreading (a top-hat distribution), without losing the quantum speed up. This paper reviews the work on decoherence, and more generally on non-unitary evolution, in quantum walks and suggests what future questions might prove interesting to pursue in this area.