Simulating the discrete-time quantum walk dynamics with simultaneous coin and shift operators

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates simulating discrete-time quantum walk dynamics using continuous-time Hamiltonian evolution with combined coin and shift operators, showing bounded deviation and key quantum walk features.

Contribution

It introduces a method to implement quantum walks via Hamiltonian evolution without switching operators, maintaining core quantum walk properties.

Findings

Hellinger distance remains bounded over many steps

System exhibits ballistic probability distribution evolution

Entanglement levels are comparable to standard quantum walks

Abstract

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 by $26\%$ for a relevant number of time steps. Even so, the system evolution shows the essential characteristics of the standard quantum walk dynamics, namely, the ballistic evolution of the probability distribution and the linear growth of the corresponding standard deviation. Moreover, the entanglement generated in this approach is approximately the same as the entanglement generated in the standard quantum walk dynamics. Finally, the system dynamics under the influence of the decoherence also shows the similar quantum-to-classical transition as in the standard quantum walk dynamics.