Spin guides and spin splitters: waveguide analogies in one-dimensional spin chains

Here we show a mapping between waveguide theory and spin-chain transport, opening an alternative approach to solid-state quantum information transport. By applying temporally varying control profiles to a spin chain, we design a virtual waveguide or "spin guide" to conduct spin excitations along defined space-time trajectories of the chain. We show that the concepts of confinement, adiabatic bend loss, and beam splitting can be mapped from optical waveguide theory to spin guides, and hence to "spin splitters." Importantly, the spatial scale of applied control pulses is required to be large compared to the interspin spacing, thereby allowing the design of scalable control architectures.