In this thesis we introduce a variation on the quantum random walk to discuss shifts in an arbitrary range. The concept of Hadamard coin was therefore generalised to a higher order. By a Fourier transform method and a tensor product decomposition of the evolution matrix the long-range quantum random walk was found to converge in distribution to a random variable, different for every range. The limiting random variable consists of three parts: one part fast decaying with the range size, a non-convergent part and a convergent part. Lastly, an introduction was made into the topic of trapped quantum random walks. As a starting point, the survival probability of such a walk on a 3-cycle was calculated and found to scale as 2^(-n), as does the classical trapped random walk on this topology.
In this thesis we introduce a variation on the quantum random walk to discuss shifts in an arbitrary range. The concept of Hadamard coin was therefore generalised to a higher order. By a Fourier transform method and a tensor product decomposition of the evolution matrix the long-range quantum random walk was found to converge in distribution to a random variable, different for every range. The limiting random variable consists of three parts: one part fast decaying with the range size, a non-convergent part and a convergent part. Lastly, an introduction was made into the topic of trapped quantum random walks. As a starting point, the survival probability of such a walk on a 3-cycle was calculated and found to scale as 2^(-n), as does the classical trapped random walk on this topology.
We analyse the quantum walk in higher spatial dimensions and compare classical and quantum spreading as a function of time. Tensor products of Hadamard transformations and the discrete Fourier transform arise as natural extensions of the 'quantum coin toss' in the one-dimensional walk simulation, and other illustrative transformations are also investigated. We find that entanglement between the dimensions serves to reduce the rate of spread of the quantum walk. The classical limit is obtained by introducing a random phase variable.
We study the asymptotic position distribution of general quantum walks on a lattice, including walks with a random coin, which is chosen from step to step by a general Markov chain. In the unitary (i.e., nonrandom) case, we allow any unitary operator which commutes with translations and couples only sites at a finite distance from each other. For example, a single step of the walk could be composed of any finite succession of different shift and coin operations in the usual sense, with any lattice dimension and coin dimension. We find ballistic scaling and establish a direct method for computing the asymptotic distribution of position divided by time, namely as the distribution of the discrete time analog of the group velocity. In the random case, we let a Markov chain (control process) pick in each step one of finitely many unitary walks, in the sense described above. In ballistic order, we find a nonrandom drift which depends only on the mean of the control process and not on the initial state. In diffusive scaling, the limiting distribution is asymptotically Gaussian, with a covariance matrix (diffusion matrix) depending on momentum. The diffusion matrix depends not only on the mean but also on the transition rates of the control process. In the nonrandom limit, i.e., when the coins chosen are all very close or the transition rates of the control process are small, leading to long intervals of ballistic evolution, the diffusion matrix diverges. Our method is based on spatial Fourier transforms, and the first and second order perturbation theory of the eigenvalue 1 of the transition operator for each value of the momentum.
Quantum walks are the quantum mechanical analogue of classical random walks. Discrete-time quantum walks have been introduced and studied mostly on the line Z or higher dimensional space Z d but rarely defined on graphs with fractal dimensions because the coin operator depends on the position and the Fourier transform on the fractals is not defined. Inspired by its nature of classical walks, different quantum walks will be defined by choosing different shift and coin operators. When the coin operator is uniform, the results of classical walks will be obtained upon measurement at each step. Moreover, with measurement at each step, our results reveal more information about the classical random walks. In this dissertation, two graphs with fractal dimensions will be considered. The first one is Sierpinski gasket, a degree-4 regular graph with Hausdorff di- mension of df = ln 3/ ln 2. The second is the Cantor graph derived like Cantor set, with Hausdorff dimension of df = ln 2/ ln 3. The definitions and amplitude functions of the quantum walks will be introduced. The main part of this dissertation is to derive a recursive formula to compute the amplitude Green function. The exiting probability will be computed and compared with the classical results. When the generation of graphs goes to infinity, the recursion of the walks will be investigated and the convergence rates will be obtained and compared with the classical counterparts.
We consider general quantum random walks in a d -dimensional half-space. We first obtain a path integral formula for general quantum random walks in a d -dimensional space. Our path integral formula is valid for general quantum random walks on Cayley graphs as well. Then the path integral formula is applied to obtain the scaling limit of the exit distribution, the expectation of exit time and the asymptotic behaviour of the exit probabilities, for general quantum random walks in a half-space under some conditions on amplitude functions. The conditions are shown to be satisfied by both the Hadamard and Grover quantum random walks in two-dimensional half-spaces. For the two-dimensional case, we show that the critical exponent for the scaling limit of the hitting distribution is 1 as the lattice spacing tends to zero, i.e. the natural magnitude of the hitting position is of order O (1) if the lattice spacing is set to be 1/ n . We also show that the rate of convergence of the total hitting probability has lower bound n −2 and upper bound n −2+ for any > 0. For a quantum random walk with a fixed starting point, we show that the probability of hitting times at the hyperplane decays faster than that of the classical random walk. In both one and two dimensions, given the event of a hit, the conditional expectation of hitting times is finite, in contrast to being infinite for the classical case. In the one-dimensional case, we also obtain an exact order of the probability distribution of the hitting time at 0.
Discrete-time quantum walks are considered a counterpart of random walks and their study has been getting attention since around 2000. In this paper, we focus on a quantum walk which generates a probability distribution splitting to two parts. The quantum walker with two coin states spreads at points, represented by integers, and we analyze the chance of finding the walker at each position after it carries out a unitary evolution a lot of times. The result is reported as a long-time limit distribution from which one can see an approximation to the finding probability.
It is believed that in the long time limit, the limiting behavior of the discrete-time quantum random walk will cross from quantum to classical if we take into account of the decoherence. The computer simulation has already shown that for the discrete-time one-dimensional Hadamard quantum random walk with coin decoherence such that the measurement operators on the coin space are defined by A0 = Ic √1 − p, A1 = |R > < R| √p and A2 = |L > < L > < L| √p is diffusive when 0 < p ≤ 1 and it is ballistic when P = 0. In this thesis, we are going to let p to be dynamical depending on the step t, that is, we consider p = 1/tß, ß ≥ 0 and we found that it has sub-ballistic behavior for 0 < ß < 1. Furthermore, we study not only the coin decoherence, but the total decoherence, that means the measurement operators apply on the Hilbert space H = Hp ⊗ Hc instead of the coin space only. We find that the results are both sub-ballistic for the coin and total decoherence when 0 < ß < 1. Moreover, according to the model given in [T. A. Brun, H. A. Carteret, and A. Ambainis, Phys. Rev. A 67, 032304 (2003)], we know that if the walker has chance to hop to the second nearest neighbor lattice in one step, the long-time behavior is also sub-ballistic and it is similar to that the walker can hop to the third nearest neighbor lattice in one step. By the way, we also find that if we combine the classical part of the model given in [Jing Zhao and Peiqing Tong. One-dimensional quantum walks subject to next nearest neighbor hopping decoherence, Nanjing Normal University, preprint (2014)] with different step length, then this decoherence will also cross from quantum to classical. Finally, we define the quantum γ-stable walk and obtain the quantum γ-stable law with decoherence. By this decoherence, we can see that the limiting behavior of the quantum stable walk will also cross from quantum to classical and we shows that it spreads out faster than the classical stable walk.