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CRC Press eBooks

Foundational Theory of Quantum Walks

Fei Yan, Liang Wen, Fangyan Dong

Published Nov 24, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

This chapter presents the quantum walks on regular graphs (including low-dimensional discrete-time quantum walks, one-dimensional continuous-time quantum walks, and related variants) as well as quantum walks on complex networks. It provides a general framework for describing and defining quantum walk algorithms on complex networks.
DOI
10.1201/9781003683902-3

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Connection Between Continuous and Discrete Time Quantum Walks on d-Dimensional Lattices; Extensions to General Graphs

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I obtain the dynamics of the continuous time quantum walk on a d-dimensional lattice, with periodic boundary conditions, as an appropriate limit of the dynamics of the discrete time quantum walk on the same lattice. This extends the main result of [8] which proved this limit for the case of the quantum walk on the infinite line and the quantum cellular automaton proposed in [1]. By highlighting the main features of the limiting procedure, I then extend it to general graphs. For a given discrete time quantum walk on a general graph, I single out the type of continuous dynamics (Hamiltonians) that can be obtained as a limit of the discrete time dynamics. 1 Generalities on quantum walks; continuous and discrete time Consider a graph G: = {V, E} with a set of vertices V of cardinality N and a set of edges E. We assume G to be undirected and without self-loops. In the interval of time ∆t a certain fraction γ∆t of a quantity pj leaves the location of the j-th vertex to move to a neighboring vertex k. The quantity pj, j = 1,..., N, at time t + ∆t is given by 1 pj(t + ∆t) = pj(t) − deg (j)γ∆tpj(t) + ∑ (k,j)∈E γ∆tpk(t). (1) Define ⃗p the N−vector whose components are the pj’s quantities, and L the Laplacian matrix defined by Ljj = − deg (j), Ljk = 1 if (j, k) ∈ E and Ljk = 0 otherwise. L is
Quantum walks can be defined in two quite distinct ways: discrete-time and continuous-time quantum walks (DTQWs and CTQWs). For classical random walks, there is a natural sense in which continuous-time walks are a limit of discrete-time walks. Quantum mechanically, in the discrete-time case, an additional ``coin space'' must be appended for the walk to have nontrivial time evolution. Continuous-time quantum walks, however, have no such constraints. This means that there is no completely straightforward way to treat a CTQW as a limit of a DTQW, as can be done in the classical case. Various approaches to this problem have been taken in the past. We give a construction for walks on ddd-regular, ddd-colorable graphs when the coin flip operator is Hermitian: from a standard DTQW we construct a family of discrete-time walks with a well-defined continuous-time limit on a related graph. One can think of this limit as a ``coined'' continuous-time walk. We show that these CTQWs share some properties with coined DTQWs. In particular, we look at a spatial search by a DTQW over the two-dimensional (2D) torus (a grid with periodic boundary conditions) of size $\sqrt{N}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}\sqrt{N}$, where it was shown that a coined DTQW can search in time O(NlogN)O(\sqrt{N}logN)O(N​logN), but a standard CTQW takes $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Omega}}(N)$ time to search for a marked element. The continuous limit of the DTQW search over the 2D torus exhibits the O(NlogN)O(\sqrt{N}logN)O(N​logN) scaling, like the coined walk it is derived from. We also look at the effects of graph symmetry on the limiting walk, and show that the properties are similar to those of the DTQW as shown in Krovi and Brun, Phys. Rev. A 75, 062332 (2007).
Quantum walks, the quantum mechanical counterpart of classical random walks, is an advanced tool for building quantum algorithms that has been recently shown to constitute a universal model of quantum computation. Quantum walks is now a solid field of research of quantum computation full of exciting open problems for physicists, computer scientists and engineers. In this paper we review theoretical advances on the foundations of both discrete- and continuous-time quantum walks, together with the role that randomness plays in quantum walks, the connections between the mathematical models of coined discrete quantum walks and continuous quantum walks, the quantumness of quantum walks, a summary of papers published on discrete quantum walks and entangle-ment as well as a succinct review of experimental proposals and realizations of discrete-time quantum walks. Furthermore, we have reviewed several algorithms based on both discrete- and continuous-time quantum walks as well as a most important result: the computational universality of both continuous- and discrete-time quantum walks.
The quantum walk is a method for conceptualizing and designing quantum computing algorithms and it comes in two forms: the continuous-time and discrete-time quantum walk. The thesis is organized into three parts, each of which looks to develop the concept and uses of the quantum walk. The first part is the theory of the quantum walk. This includes definitions and considerations for the various incarnations of the discrete-time quantum walk and a discussion on the general method for connecting the continuous-time and discrete-time versions. As a result, it is shown that most versions of the discrete-time quantum walk can be put into a general form and this can be used to simulate any continuous-time quantum walk. The second part uses these results for a hypothetical application. The application presented is a search algorithm that appears to scale in the time for completion independent of the size of the search space. This behavior is then elaborated upon and shown to have general qualitative agreement with simulations to within the approximations that are made. The third part introduces a method of implementation. Given a universal quantum computer, the method is discussed and shown to simulate an arbitrary discrete-time quantum walk. Some of the benefits of this method are that half the unitary evolution can be achieved without the use of any gates and there may be some possibility for error detection. The three parts combined suggest a possible experiment, given a quantum computing scheme of sufficient robustness.