Quantum walk with a time-dependent coin

New Journal of Physics, 2014

We realize quasi-periodic dynamics of a quantum walker over 2.5 quasi-periods by realizing the walker as a single photon passing through a quantum-walk optical-interferometer network. We introduce fully controllable polarization-independent phase shifters in each optical path to realize arbitrary site-dependent phase shifts, and we employ large clear-aperture beam displacers, while maintaining high-visibility interference, to enable reaching 10 quantum-walk steps. By varying the half-wave-plate setting, we control the quantum-coin bias thereby observing a transition from quasi-periodic dynamics to ballistic diffusion.

Physical Review A, 2015

Exploiting multi-dimensional quantum walks as feasible platforms for quantum computation and quantum simulation is attracting constantly growing attention from a broad experimental physics community. We propose a modification of the quantum walk scheme described in [C. Di Franco et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 080502 (2011)] that presents, in the considered regimes, a strong localization-like effect on the walker. We characterize it in terms of the parameters of a step-dependent qubit operation that acts on the coin space before any standard coin operation, showing that a proper choice can guarantee a non-negligible probability of finding the walker at the origin even for large times. We finally discuss possible experimental realizations of this model with the current state-of-the-art settings.

Physical Review Letters, 2010

We present the first robust implementation of a coined quantum walk over five steps using only passive optical elements. By employing a fiber network loop we keep the amount of required resources constant as the walker's position Hilbert space is increased. We observed a non-Gaussian distribution of the walker's final position, thus characterizing a faster spread of the photon wave-packet in comparison to the classical random walk. The walk is realized for many different coin settings and initial states, opening the way for the implementation of a quantum walk-based search algorithm. Random walks are one of the fundamental models of natural sciences. The concept is common to many branches of research, for example describing material transport in media and the evolution of stock market shares . By endowing the walker with quantum properties many new interesting effects appear. As first noted by Aharonov et al.

Physical review letters, 2015

We demonstrate a quantum walk with time-dependent coin bias. With this technique we realize an experimental single-photon one-dimensional quantum walk with a linearly ramped time-dependent coin flip operation and thereby demonstrate two periodic revivals of the walker distribution. In our beam-displacer interferometer, the walk corresponds to movement between discretely separated transverse modes of the field serving as lattice sites, and the time-dependent coin flip is effected by implementing a different angle between the optical axis of half-wave plate and the light propagation at each step. Each of the quantum-walk steps required to realize a revival comprises two sequential orthogonal coin-flip operators, with one coin having constant bias and the other coin having a time-dependent ramped coin bias, followed by a conditional translation of the walker.

arXiv: Quantum Physics, 2015

We implement the discrete-time quantum walk model using the continuous-time evolution of the Hamiltonian that includes both the shift and the coin generators. Based on the Trotter-Suzuki first-order approximation, we consider an optimization problem in which the Hellinger distance between the walker probability distributions resulted from the evolution of such Hamiltonian and the quantum walk dynamics is minimized. The phase space implementation of the quantum walk is considered where the walker state is encoded on the coherent state of a resonator and the coin on the two-level state of a qubit. In this approach, no mechanism for switching between the coin and the shift operators is included. We show the Hellinger distance is bounded for large number of time steps. The distance is small when we deviate from the standard quantum walk model, namely, when the walker is allowed to move in between the sites. In simulating the standard quantum walk model, the distance is large but bounded...

2012

We show that the standard quantum-walk quantum-to-classical transition, characterized by ballistic-to-diffusive spreading of the walker's position, can be controlled by externally modulating the coin state. We illustrate by showing an oscillation between classical diffusive and quantum ballistic spreading using numerical and asymptotically exact closed-form solutions, and we prove that the walker is in a controllable incoherent mixture of classical and quantum walks with a reversible quantum-to-classical transition.

Communications in Theoretical Physics

We investigate the evolution of a discrete-time one-dimensional quantum walk driven by a positiondependent coin. The rotation angle which depends upon the position of a quantum particle parameterizes the coin operator. For different values of the rotation angle, we observe that such a coin leads to a variety of probability distributions, e.g. localized, periodic, classical-like, semi-classicallike, and quantum-like. Further, we study the Shannon entropy associated with position space and coin space of a quantum particle and compare it with the case of the position-independent coin. We show that the entropy is smaller for most values of the rotation angle as compared to the case of the position-independent coin. We also study the effect of entanglement on the behavior of probability distribution and Shannon entropy of a quantum walk by considering two identical position-dependent entangled coins. We observe that in general, a quantum particle becomes more localized as compared to the case of the position-independent coin and hence the corresponding Shannon entropy is minimum. Our results show that position-dependent coin can be used as a controlling tool of quantum walks.

Physics Letters A, 2021

We investigate the role of a time and spin-dependent phase shift on the evolution of onedimensional discrete-time quantum walks. By employing Floquet engineering, a time and spindependent phase shift (φ) is imprinted onto the walker’s wave function while it shifts from one lattice site to another. For a quantum walk driven by the standard protocol we show with our numerical simulations that complete revivals with equal periods occur in the probability distribution of the walk for rational values of the phase factor, i.e., φ/2π = p/q. For an irrational value of φ/2π our results show partial revivals in the probability distribution with unpredictable periods, and the walker remains localized in a small region of the lattice. We further investigate revivals in a split-step quantum walk with a time and spin-dependent phase shift for rational values of φ/2π. In contrast to the case of standard protocol, the split-step quantum walk shows partial revivals in the probability distribution. F...

arXiv (Cornell University), 2014

The control of quantum walk is made particularly transparent when the initial state is expressed in terms of the eigenstates of the coin operator. We show that the group-velocity density acquires a much simpler form when expressed in this basis. This allows us to obtain a much deeper understanding of the role of the initial coin state on the dynamics of quantum walks and control it. We find that the eigenvectors of the coin result in an extremal regime of a quantum walk. The approach is illustrated on two examples of quantum walks on a line.

arXiv (Cornell University), 2018

The dimensionality of the internal coin space of discrete-time quantum walks has a strong impact on the complexity and richness of the dynamics of quantum walkers. While two-dimensional coin operators have successfully been used for defining dynamics on complex graphs, higher dimensional coins are necessary to unleash the full potential of discrete-time quantum walks. In this work we present an experimental realisation of a discrete-time quantum walk on a line graph, that instead of a two-dimensional exhibits a four-dimensional coin space. Making use of the extra degree of freedom, we are able to generate quantum walks on cyclic graphs of various sizes and topologies, with mixing and non-mixing coins and different input positions and polarisations. By exploiting the full dimensionality of the coin we additionally demonstrate walk evolutions on figure eight graphs consisting of two cycles connected by a central node of rank four. We implemented the quantum walks via time-multiplexing scheme in a Michelson interferometer loop architecture, employing polarisation and travelling direction of the pulses in the loop as the coin degrees of freedom. The experimental results are supplemented by theoretical analysis of accessible coin operations, plus a scheme to produce arbitrary $4\times 4$ unitary coin operations.