We study the dynamics of a generalization of quantum coin walk on the line which is a natural model for a diffusion modified by quantum or interference effects. In particular, our results provide surprisingly simple explanations to phenomena observed by Bouwmeester et al. (Phys. Rev. A, 61, 13410 (1999)) in their optical Galton board experiment, and a description of a stroboscopic quantum walks given by Buershaper and Burnett (quant-ph/0406039) through numerical simulations. We also provide heuristic explanations for the behavior of our model which show, in particular, that its dynamics can be viewed as a discrete version of Bloch oscillations.
We study the dynamics of a generalization of quantum coin walk on the line which is a natural model for a diffusion modified by quantum or interference effects. In particular, our results provide surprisingly simple explanations to phenomena observed by Bouwmeester et al. (Phys. Rev. A, 61, 13410 (1999)) in their optical Galton board experiment, and a description of a stroboscopic quantum walks given by Buershaper and Burnett (quant-ph/0406039) through numerical simulations. We also provide heuristic explanations for the behavior of our model which show, in particular, that its dynamics can be viewed as a discrete version of Bloch oscillations.
We study the dynamics of a generalization of a quantum coin walk on the line, which is a natural model for a diffusion modified by quantum or interference effects. In particular, our results provide surprisingly simple explanations for recurrence phenomena observed by Bouwmeester et al. [Phys. Rev. A 61, 13410 (1999)]] in their optical Galton board experiment, and a description of a stroboscopic quantum walk given by Buerschaper and Burnett [quant-ph/0406039] through numerical simulations. We also provide heuristic explanations for the behavior of our model which show, in particular, that its dynamics can be viewed as a discrete version of Bloch oscillations.
We provide an explanation of recent experimental results of Xue et al. [P. Xue, R. Zhang, H. Qin, X. Zhan, Z. H. Bian, J. Li, and B. C. Sanders, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 140502 (2015)], where full revivals in a time-dependent quantum walk model with a periodically changing coin are found. Using methods originally developed for ``electric'' walks with a space-dependent, rather than a time-dependent, coin, we provide a full explanation of the observations of Xue et al. We extend the analysis from periodic time dependence to quasiperiodic behavior with periods incommensurate to the step size. Spectral analysis, one of the principal tools for the study of electric walks, fails for time-dependent systems, but we find qualitative propagation behavior of the time-dependent system in close analogy to the electric case.
Quantum walk (QW), the quantum mechanical counterpart of classical random walk, has recently been studied in various fields. The evolution of the discrete time quantum walk can be described as follows: the walker changes its spin state by the coin operator C, then takes one step left or right according to its spin state. For homogeneous quantum walk, the coin operator is independent of time and the standard deviation of the position grows linearly in time. It is quadratically faster than that in the classical random walk. In this work, we numerically study the dynamical behaviors of spreading in a one-dimensional discrete time quasiperiodic quantum walk (DTQQW). The DTQQW is that the coin operator is dependent on time and takes two different coins C() and C() arranged in generalized Fibonacci (GF) sequences. The GF sequences are constructed from A by the recursion relation: AAmBn, BA, for m, n are positive integers. They can be classified into two classes according to the wandering exponent . For 0, they belong to the first class, and for 0, they belong to the second class. For one dimensional system, the behaviors of two classes of GF systems are different either for the electronic spectrum of an electron in quasiperiodic potentials or for the quantum phase transitions of the quasiperiodic spin chains. In this paper, we discuss the cases of two different C operators (C();C()) arranged in GF sequences and find that the spreading behaviors are superdiffusion (the standard deviation of the position ~t; 0:5 1) for the two classes of GF DTQQW. For the second class of GF DTQQW, the exponent values are larger than those of the first class of GF DTQQW in the case of two identical C operators. By exploring the probability distribution in the real space, we find that for the first class of GF DTQQW, the probability distributions are almost the same for different initial states and are similar to the classical Gaussian distribution. For the probability distributions of the second class of GF DTQQW, there are two peaks at the two edges and the height of the two peaks can be different for different initial states. They are similar to the ballistic distribution of the homogeneous quantum walk. Therefore, we conclude that for the first class of GF DTQQW, the spreading behaviors are close to those of the classical random walk ( = 0:5) while for the second class of GF DTQQW, they are close to those of the homogeneous quantum walk ( = 1). This result is quite different from the characteristics of the quantum phase transitions in two classes of GF quasiperiodic quantum spin chains.
Abstract Quantum walks are known to propagate quadratically faster than their classical counterparts and are used to model dynamics in various quantum systems. The spread of the quantum walk in position space shows anomalous diffusion behavior. By controlling the action of quantum coin operation on the corresponding coin degree of freedom of the walker, one can demonstrate control over the diffusion behavior. In this work, we report different forms of coin operations on quantum walks exhibiting anomalous diffusion behavior. Homogeneous and accelerated quantum walks display superdiffusive behavior, whereas uncorrelated static and dynamic disorders in the evolution induce strong and weak localization of the particle indicating subdiffusive and normal diffusive behavior. The role played by the interference effects in the spreading of the walker has remained elusive and our aim in this work is to present the interplay between quantum coherence and mean squared displacement of the walker. We employ two reliable measures of coherence for conclusively establishing the role of quantum interference as the driving force behind the anomalous diffusive behavior in the dynamics of quantum walks.
We introduce quantum walks with a time-dependent coin, and show how they include, as a particular case, the generalized quantum walk recently studied by Wojcik et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 180601 (2004)] which exhibits interesting dynamical localization and quasiperiodic dynamics. Our proposal allows for a much easier implementation of this particularly rich dynamics than the original one. Moreover, it allows for an additional control on the walk, which can be used to compensate for phases appearing due to external interactions. To illustrate its feasibility, we discuss an example using an optical cavity. We also derive an approximated solution in the continuous limit (long-wavelength approximation) which provides physical insight about the process.
Constructing a discrete model like a cellular automaton is a powerful method for understanding various dynamical systems. However, the relationship between the discrete model and its continuous analogue is, in general, nontrivial. As a quantum-mechanical cellular automaton, a discrete-time quantum walk is defined to include various quantum dynamical behavior. Here we generalize a discrete-time quantum walk on a line into the feed-forward quantum coin model, which depends on the coin state of the previous step. We show that our proposed model has an anomalous slow diffusion characterized by the porous-medium equation, while the conventional discrete-time quantum walk model shows ballistic transport.