Quantum-to-classical transition via quantum cellular automata

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how quantum cellular automata can be coarse-grained to reveal their classical behavior, showing convergence to diffusion and transport equations, thus modeling the quantum-to-classical transition.

Contribution

It introduces a coarse-graining method for QCA that illustrates the emergence of classical dynamics from quantum models.

Findings

QCA can be coarse-grained to classical cellular automata.

Emergent dynamics converge to diffusion and transport equations.

QCA effectively models the quantum-to-classical transition.

Abstract

A quantum cellular automaton (QCA) is an abstract model consisting of an array of finite-dimensional quantum systems that evolves in discrete time by local unitary operations. Here we propose a simple coarse-graining map, where the spatial structure of the QCA is merged into effective ones. Starting with a QCA that simulates the Dirac equation, we apply this coarse-graining map recursively until we get its effective dynamics in the semiclassical limit, which can be described by a classical cellular automaton. We show that the emergent-effective result of the former microscopic discrete model converges to the diffusion equation and to a classical transport equation under a specific initial condition. Therefore, QCA is a good model to validate the quantum-to-classical transition.