Disorder and decoherence in coined quantum walks

This article aims to provide a review on quantum walks. Starting form a basic idea of discrete-time quantum walks, we will review the impact of disorder and decoherence on the properties of quantum walks. The evolution of the standard quantum walks is deterministic and disorder introduces randomness to the whole system and change interference pattern leading to the localization effect. Whereas, decoherence plays the role of transmitting quantum walks to classical random walks.     

Disordered quantum walks in two-dimensional lattices

The properties of the two-dimensional quantum walk with point,line,and circle disorders in phase are reported.Localization is observed in the two-dimensional quantum walk with certain phase disorder and specific initial coin states.We give an explanation of the localization behavior via the localized stationary states of the unitary operator of the walker+coin system and the overlap between the initial state of the whole system and the localized stationary states.     

Discrete-time quantum walks on one-dimensional lattices

In this paper, we study discrete-time quantum walks on one-dimensional lattices. We find that the coherent dynamics depends on the initial states and coin parameters. For infinite size of lattices, we derive an explicit expression for the return probability, which shows scaling behavior P(0, t) ~ t ^-1 and does not depends on the initial states of the walk. In the long-time limit, the probability distribution shows various patterns, depending on the initial states, coin parameters and the lattice size. The time-averaged probability mixes to the limiting probability distribution in linear time, i.e., the mixing time M _ε is a linear function of N (size of the lattices) for large values of thresholds ϵ. Finally, we introduce another kind of quantum walk on infinite or even-numbered size of lattices, and show that by the method of mathematical induction, the walk is equivalent to the traditional quantum walk with symmetrical initial state and coin parameter.     

Random walks on random lattices with traps

A critical examination is presented of the continuous time random walk (CTRW) approximation and of frequency-dependent effective transition rate methods for calculating the configurational average of the Laplace transform of the probabilityPs, t|₀) that a particle performing a random walk will be at site s timet after it reached the site s₀. Some exact results are derived for the form of P(s, t|s₀) at long times, and these indicate that the effective transition rate methods are the better approximation for systems with symmetric effective hopping rates, while the CTRW approximation is better for systems containing traps, i.e., states that are much easier to enter than to leave. The implications of these results for calculations of transient currents and of the ac conductivity for amorphous semiconductors are discussed.     

On decoherence in quantum gravity

It was previously argued that the phenomenon of quantum gravitational decoherence described by the Wheeler‐DeWitt equation is responsible for the emergence of the arrow of time. Here we show that the characteristic spatio‐temporal scales of quantum gravitational decoherence are typically logarithmically larger than a characteristic curvature radius of the background space‐time. This largeness is a direct consequence of the fact that gravity is a non‐renormalizable theory, and the corresponding effective field theory is nearly decoupled from matter degrees of freedom in the physical limit . Therefore, as such, quantum gravitational decoherence is too ineffective to guarantee the emergence of the arrow of time and the “quantum‐to‐classical” transition to happen at scales of physical interest. We argue that the emergence of the arrow of time is directly related to the nature and properties of physical observer.

     

Random walks on cubic lattices with bond disorder

We consider diffusive systems with static disorder, such as Lorentz gases, lattice percolation, ants in a labyrinth, termite problems, random resistor networks, etc. In the case of diluted randomness we can apply the methods of kinetic theory to obtain systematic expansions of dc and ac transport properties in powers of the impurity concentrationc. The method is applied to a hopping model on ad-dimensional cubic lattice having two types of bonds with conductivity and ₀=1, with concentrationsc and 1–c, respectively. For the square lattice we explicitly calculate the diffusion coefficientD(c,) as a function ofc, to O(c²) terms included for different ratios of the bond conductivity. The probability of return at long times is given byP ₀(t) [4D(c,)t]^–d/2, which is determined by the diffusion coefficient of the disordered system.     

Indirect decoherence in optical lattices and cold gases

The interaction of two–level atoms with a common heat bath leads to an effective interaction between the atoms, such that with time the internal degrees of the atoms become correlated or even entangled. If part of the atoms remain unobserved this creates additional indirect decoherence for the selected atoms, on top of the direct decoherence due to the interaction with the heat bath. I show that indirect decoherence can drastically increase and even dominate the decoherence for sufficiently large times. I investigate indirect decoherence through thermal black body radiation quantitatively for atoms trapped at regular positions in an optical lattice as well as for atoms at random positions in a cold gas, and show how indirect decoherence can be controlled or even suppressed through experimentally accessible parameters.     

Quantum interference and decoherence in hexagonal antidot lattices

The Altshuler–Aronov–Spivak (AAS) oscillations and the Aharonov–Bohm (AB) type oscillations both at low and high magnetic fields were observed in hexagonal antidot lattices fabricated from a GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron gas sample. The periodicities in the magnetic field and in the gate bias voltage, of the high field AB oscillation furnish information on the edge states localized around the antidots. The temperature dependences of these quantum oscillations are studied.     

Self-avoiding walks and trees in spread-out lattices

LetG _R be the graph obtained by joining all sites ofZ ^d which are separated by a distance of at mostR. Let (G _R ) denote the connective constant for counting the self-avoiding walks in this graph. Let (G _R ) denote the coprresponding constant for counting the trees embedded inG _R . Then asR, (G _R ) is asymptotic to the coordination numberk _R ofG _R , while (G _R ) is asymptotic toek _R. However, ifd is 1 or 2, then (G _R )-k _R diverges to –.Dedicated to Oliver Penrose on this occasion of his 65th birthday.     

Parallel decoherence in composite quantum systems

For the standard quantum Brownian motion (QBM) model, we point out the occurrence of simultaneous (parallel), mutually irreducible and autonomous decoherence processes. Besides the standard Brownian particle, we show that there is at least another system undergoing the dynamics described by the QBM model. We do this by selecting the two mutually irreducible, global structures (decompositions into subsystems) of the composite system of the QBM model. The generalization of this observation is a new, challenging task in the foundations of the decoherence theory. We do not place our findings in any interpretational context.     

Reduced decoherence in large quantum registers

Among the biggest obstacles for building larger (and thus more powerful) quantum-information processors is decoherence, the decay of quantum-information by the coupling between the quantum register and its environment. Procedures for reducing decoherence processes will be essential for successful operation of larger quantum processors. We study model quantum registers consisting of up to 4900 qubits and measure their decay as a function of the register size. We demonstrate that appropriate sequences of qubit rotations reduce the coupling between system and environment for all sizes of the quantum register, thus preserving the quantum-information 50 times longer than without decoupling.     

On decoherence in quantum clock synchronization

We study two quantum versions of the Eddington clock-synchronization protocol in the presence of decoherence. The first protocol uses maximally entangled states to achieve the Heisenberg limit for clock synchronization. The second protocol achieves the limit without using entanglement. We show the equivalence of the two protocols under any single-qubit decoherence model that does not itself provide synchronization information.     

Statistics of self-avoiding walks on random lattices

The statistics of directed self-avoiding walks (SAWs) on randomly bond diluted square lattices have been solved exactly and a computer simulation study of the statistics of ordinary SAWs on diluted square lattices has also been performed. The configurational averaging has been performed here over the logarithms of the distribution functions. We find that the critical behaviour remains unchanged below a certain dilution concentrationp ^*, dependent on the length of the chains considered (p ^*=0 forN), and a crossover to a higher order critical behaviour occurs beyond that point.     

A quantum trajectory description of decoherence

A complete theoretical treatment in many problems relevant to physics, chemistry, and biology requires considering the action of the environment over the system of interest. Usually the environment involves a relatively large number of degrees of freedom, this making the problem numerically intractable from a purely quantum-mechanical point of view. To overcome this drawback, a new class of quantum trajectories is proposed. These trajectories, based on the same grounds as Bohmian ones, are solely associated to the system reduced density matrix, since the evolution of the environment degrees of freedom is not considered explicitly. Within this approach, environment effects come into play through a time-dependent damping factor that appears in the system equations of motion. Apart from their evident computational advantage, this type of trajectories also results very insightful to understand the system decoherence. In particular, here we show the usefulness of these trajectories analyzing decoherence effects in interference phenomena, taking as a working model the well-known double-slit experiment.     

One-dimensional quantum walks with a position-dependent coin

We investigate the evolution of a discrete-time one-dimensional quantum walk driven by a position-dependent 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, classicallike, semi-classical-like, and quantum-like. Further, we study the Shannon entropy associated with position and the coin space of a quantum particle, and compare them with the case of the position-independent coin. Our results 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 by considering a quantum walk with two identical position-dependent entangled coins. We observe that in general, a wave function becomes more localized as compared to the case of the positionindependent coin and hence the corresponding Shannon entropy is lower. Our results show that a position-dependent coin can be used as a controlling tool of quantum walks.     

Robustness of quantum correlations against decoherence

We study dynamics of nonclassical correlations by exactly solving a model consisting of two atomic qubits with spontaneous emission. We find that the nonclassical correlations defined by different measures give different qualitative characterizations of those correlations. The relative behaviors of those correlation measures are presented explicitly for various quantum states in the two-qubit atomic system. In particular, we find that the robustness of quantum correlations can be greatly enhanced by performing appropriate local unitary operations on the initial state of the system.     

Spin bath decoherence of quantum entanglement

We study an analytically solvable model for decoherence of a two spin system embedded in a large spin environment. As a measure of entanglement, we evaluate the concurrence for the Bell states (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen pairs). We find that while for two separate spin baths all four Bell states lose their coherence with the same time dependence, for a common spin bath, two of the states decay faster than the others. We explain this difference by the relative orientation of the individual spins in the pair. We also examine how the Bell inequality is violated in the coherent regime. Both for one bath and two bath cases, we find that while two of the Bell states always obey the inequality, the other two violate the inequality at early times.     

Anomalous decoherence effect in a quantum bath

Decoherence of quantum objects in noisy environments is important in quantum sciences and technologies. It is generally believed that different processes coupled to the same noise source have similar decoherence behaviors and stronger noises cause faster decoherence. Here we show that in a quantum bath, the case can be the opposite. We predict that the multitransition of a nitrogen-vacancy center spin-1 in diamond can have longer coherence time than the single transitions, even though the former suffers twice stronger noises from the nuclear spin bath than the latter. This anomalous decoherence effect is due to manipulation of the bath evolution via flips of the center spin.     

Strong decoherence in quantum systems undergoing collisions

The decoherence problem in systems with continuous variables is discussed. It is shown that in quantum systems with momentum transfers in the Markovian approximation all pure states strongly decohere making quantum information processing much more complex than in the qubit case. The time scale of the effect is calculated.