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arXiv:quant-ph/0409042 · Physical Review E

Convergence of continuous-time quantum walks on the line

Alex D. Gottlieb

Published Oct 25, 2005• 23 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The position density of a "particle" performing a continuous-time quantum walk on the integer lattice, viewed on length scales inversely proportional to the time , converges (as tends to infinity) to a probability distribution that depends on the initial state of the particle. This convergence behavior has recently been demonstrated for the simplest continuous-time random walk [N. Konno, Phys. Rev. E 72, 026113 (2005)]. In this Brief Report, we use a different technique to establish the same convergence for a very large class of continuous-time quantum walks, and we identify the limit distribution in the general case.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.72.047102

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The position density of a "particle" performing a continuous-time quantum walk on the integer lattice, viewed on length scales inversely proportional to the time , converges (as tends to infinity) to a probability distribution that depends on the initial state of the particle. This convergence behavior has recently been demonstrated for the simplest continuous-time random walk [N. Konno, Phys. Rev. E 72, 026113 (2005)]. In this Brief Report, we use a different technique to establish the same convergence for a very large class of continuous-time quantum walks, and we identify the limit distribution in the general case.
In this paper, we study the discrete-time quantum random walks on a line subject to decoherence. The convergence of the rescaled position probability distribution p(x,t)p(x,t)p(x,t) depends mainly on the spectrum of the superoperator Lkk{\mathcal{L}}_{kk}Lkk​. We show that if 1 is an eigenvalue of the superoperator with multiplicity one and there is no other eigenvalue whose modulus equals 1, then $\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{P}(\frac{\ensuremath{\nu}}{\sqrt{t}},t)$ converges to a convex combination of normal distributions. In terms of position space, the rescaled probability mass function ${p}_{t}(x,t)\ensuremath{\equiv}p(\sqrt{t}x,t)$, $x\ensuremath{\in}Z/\sqrt{t}$, converges in distribution to a continuous convex combination of normal distributions. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for a U(2) decoherent quantum walk that satisfies the eigenvalue conditions. We also give a complete description of the behavior of quantum walks whose eigenvalues do not satisfy these assumptions. Specific examples such as the Hadamard walk and walks under real and complex rotations are illustrated. For the O(2) quantum random walks, an explicit formula is provided for the scaling limit of p(x,t)p(x,t)p(x,t) and their moments. We also obtain exact critical exponents for their moments at the critical point and show universality classes with respect to these critical exponents.
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).
We consider the discrete time unitary dynamics given by a quantum walk on the lattice Zd\Z^dZd performed by a quantum particle with internal degree of freedom, called coin state, according to the following iterated rule: a unitary update of the coin state takes place, followed by a shift on the lattice, conditioned on the coin state of the particle. We study the large time behavior of the quantum mechanical probability distribution of the position observable in Zd\Z^dZd when the sequence of unitary updates is given by an i.i.d. sequence of random matrices. When averaged over the randomness, this distribution is shown to display a drift proportional to the time and its centered counterpart is shown to display a diffusive behavior with a diffusion matrix we compute. A moderate deviation principle is also proven to hold for the averaged distribution and the limit of the suitably rescaled corresponding characteristic function is shown to satisfy a diffusion equation. A generalization to unitary updates distributed according to a Markov process is also provided. An example of i.i.d. random updates for which the analysis of the distribution can be performed without averaging is worked out. The distribution also displays a deterministic drift proportional to time and its centered counterpart gives rise to a random diffusion matrix whose law we compute. A large deviation principle is shown to hold for this example. We finally show that, in general, the expectation of the random diffusion matrix equals the diffusion matrix of the averaged distribution.
Continuous-time quantum walks with long-range steps ${R}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\gamma}}$ (RRR being the distance between sites) on a discrete line behave in similar ways for all $\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\ge}2$. This is in contrast to classical random walks, which for $\ensuremath{\gamma}>3$ belong to a different universality class than for $\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\le}3$. We show that the average probabilities to be at the initial site after time ttt as well as the mean square displacements are of the same functional form for quantum walks with $\ensuremath{\gamma}=2$, 444, and with nearest neighbor steps. We interpolate this result to arbitrary $\ensuremath{\gamma}\ensuremath{\ge}2$.
Quantum walks are quantum counterparts of random walks. While probability distributions of random walks diffusively spread out as the walkers are updating, quantum walks have ballistic behavior. Some of the ballistic behaviors have been revealed in long-time limit theorems and their probability distributions are all far away from the Gaussian distributions, which are known as limit distributions of random walks. In this chapter, we are going to be seeing limit distributions for a standard quantum walk on the line and two kinds of time-dependent quantum walk on the line.