The capability to generate and manipulate quantum states in high-dimensional Hilbert spaces is a crucial step for the development of quantum technologies, from quantum communication to quantum computation. One-dimensional quantum walk dynamics represents a valid tool in the task of engineering arbitrary quantum states. Here we affirm such potential in a linear-optics platform that realizes discrete-time quantum walks in the orbital angular momentum degree of freedom of photons. Different classes of relevant qudit states in a six-dimensional space are prepared and measured, confirming the feasibility of the protocol. Our results represent a further investigation of quantum walk dynamics in photonics platforms, paving the way for the use of such a quantum state-engineering toolbox for a large range of applications.
Quantum state preparation in high-dimensional systems is an essential requirement for many quantum-technology applications. The engineering of an arbitrary quantum state is, however, typically strongly dependent on the experimental platform chosen for implementation, and a general framework is still missing. Here we show that coined quantum walks on a line, which represent a framework general enough to encompass a variety of different platforms, can be used for quantum state engineering of arbitrary superpositions of the walker's sites. We achieve this goal by identifying a set of conditions that fully characterize the reachable states in the space comprising walker and coin and providing a method to efficiently compute the corresponding set of coin parameters. We assess the feasibility of our proposal by identifying a linear optics experiment based on photonic orbital angular momentum technology.
Quantum state engineering, namely, the generation and control of arbitrary quantum states, is drawing more and more attention due to its wide applications in quantum information and computation. However, there is no general method in theory, and the existing schemes also depend heavily on the selected experimental platform. In this article, we give two schemes for the generating task of arbitrary quantum state in
c-partite
d-dimensional system, both of which are based on a discrete-time quantum walk with a
2c-dimensional time- and position-dependent coin. The first procedure is a
d-step quantum walk where all the
d coins are nonidentity, while the second procedure is an
O(d)-step quantum walk where only
O(logd) coins are nonidentity. A concrete example of preparing generalized Bell states is given to demonstrate the first scheme we proposed. Furthermore, the first scheme can be applied to give an alternative approach to the quantum state preparation problem which is one of the fundamental tasks of quantum information processing. We design circuits for quantum state preparation with the help of our quantum state engineering scheme that match the best current result in both size and depth of the circuit asymptotically.