When classically searching a database, having additional correct answers makes the search easier. For a discrete-time quantum walk searching a graph for a marked vertex, however, additional marked vertices can make the search harder by causing the system to approximately begin in a stationary state, so the system fails to evolve. In this paper, we completely characterize the stationary states, or 1-eigenvectors, of the quantum walk search operator for general graphs and configurations of marked vertices by decomposing their amplitudes into uniform and flip states. This infinitely expands the number of known stationary states and gives an optimization procedure to find the stationary state closest to the initial uniform state of the walk. We further prove theorems on the existence of stationary states, with them conditionally existing if the marked vertices form a bipartite connected component and always existing if non-bipartite. These results utilize the standard oracle in Grover's algorithm, but we show that a different type of oracle prevents stationary states from interfering with the search algorithm.
We obtain stationary measures for the one-dimensional three-state Grover walk with one defect by solving the corresponding eigenvalue problem. We clarify a relation between stationary and limit measures of the walk.
Stationary measures of quantum walks on the one-dimensional integer lattice are well studied. However, the stationary measure for the higher dimensional case has not been clarified. In this paper, we give the stationary amplitude for quantum walks on the d-dimensional integer lattice with a finite support by solving the corresponding eigenvalue problem. As a corollary, we can obtain the stationary measures of the Grover walks. In fact, the amplitude for the stationary measure is an eigenfunction with eigenvalue 1.
In this paper, we consider stationary measures of discrete-time three-state quantum walks including the Fourier and Grover walks in the one-dimensional lattice. We give non-uniform stationary measures by solving the corresponding eigenvalue problem. Our new method is based on a reduced matrix, which is different from the generating function approach in our previous work. As a corollary, the Fourier walk on the cycle has a stationary measure with a periodicity.
In this paper, we consider the stationary measure of the Hadamard walk on the one-dimensional integer lattice. Here all the stationary measures given by solving the eigenvalue problem are completely determined via the transfer matrix method. Then these stationary measures can be divided into three classes, i.e., quadratic polynomial, bounded, and exponential types. In particular, we present an explicit necessary and sufficient condition for the bounded-type stationary measure to be periodic.
We consider quantum walks on the cycle in the non-stationary case where the `coin' operation is allowed to change at each time step. We characterize, in algebraic terms, the set of possible state transfers and prove that, as opposed to the stationary case, it is possible to asymnptotically reach a uniform distribution among the nodes of the associated graph.
We consider the two-state space-inhomogeneous coined quantum walk (QW) in one dimension. For a general setting, we obtain the stationary measure of the QW by solving the eigenvalue problem. As a corollary, stationary measures of the multi-defect model and space-homogeneous QW are derived. The former is a generalization of the previous works on one-defect model and the latter is a generalization of the result given by Konno and Takei (2015).
The discrete-time quantum walk (QW) is a quantum version of the random walk (RW) and has been widely investigated for the last two decades. Some remarkable properties of QW are well known. For example, QW has a ballistic spreading, i.e., QW is quadratically faster than RW. For some cases, localization occurs: a walker stays at the starting position forever. In this paper, we consider stationary measures of two-state QWs on the line. It was shown that for any space-homogeneous model, the uniform measure becomes the stationary measure. However, the corresponding result for space-inhomogeneous mo…
We treat three types of measures of the quantum walk (QW) with the spatial perturbation at the origin, which was introduced by [1]: time averaged limit measure, weak limit measure, and stationary measure. From the first two measures, we see a coexistence of the ballistic and localized behaviors in the walk as a sequential result following [1,2]. We propose a universality class of QWs with respect to weak limit measure. It is shown that typical spatial homogeneous QWs with ballistic spreading belong to the universality class. We find that the walk treated here with one defect also belongs to th…
We advance the previous studies of quantum walks on the line with two coins. Such four-state quantum walks driven by a three-direction shift operator may have nonzero stationary distributions (localization), thus distinguishing themselves from the quantum walks on the line in the basic scenario (i.e., driven by a single coin). In this work, asymptotic position distributions of the quantum walks are examined. We derive a weak limit for the quantum walks and explicit formulas of stationary probability distribution, whose dependencies on the coin parameter and the initial state of quantum walks a…
We consider a quantum walk model on a finite graph which has an interaction with the outside. Here a quantum walker from the outside penetrates the graph and also a quantum walker in the graph goes out to the outside at every time step. This dynamics of the quantum walk converges to a stationary state. In this paper, we estimate the speed of the convergence to the stationary state on the $κ$-regular graph with the uniformly inserting of the inflow to the graph. We show that larger degree of the regular graph makes the convergence speed of this quantum walk model slower.
We study a discrete-time quantum walk (QW) on the line with a single phase at the origin which was introduced and studied by Wojcik et al.[1]. We call the model "Wojcik model" here. Konno et al.[2] investigated other types of QWs with one defect at the origin. They presented a method which gives the stationary measure corresponding to localization for the QWs by use of the generating functions splitted in positive and negative parts respectively. In this paper, we call the method "the splitted generating function method (the SGF method)". To clarify in detail which QW is appropriate for the me…
Recurrence of a random walk is described by the Polya number. For quantum walks, recurrence is understood as the return of the walker to the origin, rather than the full-revival of its quantum state. Localization for two dimensional quantum walks is known to exist in the sense of non-vanishing probability distribution in the asymptotic limit. We show on the example of the 2-D Grover walk that one can exploit the effect of localization to construct stationary solutions. Moreover, we find full-revivals of a quantum state with a period of two steps. We prove that there cannot be longer cycles for…
In this paper, we introduce a quantum walk whose local scattering at each vertex is denoted by a unitary circulant matrix; namely the circulant quantum walk. We also introduce another quantum walk induced by the circulant quantum walk; namely the optical quantum walk, whose underlying graph is a $2$-regular directed graph and obtained by blowing up the original graph in some way. We propose a design of an optical circuit which implements the stationary state of the optical quantum walk. We show that if the induced optical quantum walk does not have $+1$ eigenvalue, then the stationary state of…
We present several families of graphs that allow both efficient quantum walk implementations and efficient quantum walk based search algorithms. For these graphs, we construct quantum circuits that explicitly implement the full quantum walk search algorithm, without reference to a `black box' oracle. These circuits provide a practically implementable method to explore quantum walk based search algorithms with the aim of eventual real-world applications. We also provide a numerical analysis of a quantum walk based search along a twisted toroid family of graphs, which requires O($\sqrt{n}$ log($…
We consider the stationary state of a quantum walk on the finite path, where the sink and source are set at the left and right boundaries. The quantum coin is uniformly placed at every vertex of the path graph. At every time step, a new quantum walker penetrates into the internal from the left boundary and also some existing quantum walkers in the internal goes out to the sinks located in the left and right boundaries. The square modulus of the stationary state at each vertex is regarded as the comfortability for a quantum walker to this vertex in this paper. We show the weak convergence theor…
In this paper, we show reduction methods for search algorithms on graphs using quantum walks. By using a graph partitioning method called equitable partition for the the given graph, we determine "effective subspace" for the search algorithm to reduce the size of the problem. We introduce the equitable partition for quantum walk based search algorithms and show how to determine "effective subspace" and reduced operator.
We identify a key difference between quantum search by discrete- and continuous-time quantum walks: a discrete-time walk typically performs one walk step per oracle query, whereas a continuous-time walk can effectively perform multiple walk steps per query while only counting query time. As a result, we show that continuous-time quantum walks can outperform their discrete-time counterparts, even though both achieve quadratic speedups over their corresponding classical random walks. To provide greater equity, we allow the discrete-time quantum walk to also take multiple walk steps per oracle qu…
We show how a quantum walk can be used to find a marked edge or a marked complete subgraph of a complete graph. We employ a version of a quantum walk, the scattering walk, which lends itself to experimental implementation. The edges are marked by adding elements to them that impart a specific phase shift to the particle as it enters or leaves the edge. If the complete graph has N vertices and the subgraph has K vertices, the particle becomes localized on the subgraph in O(N/K) steps. This leads to a quantum search that is quadratically faster than a corresponding classical search. We show how …
Quantum computers are susceptible to noises from the outside world. We investigate the effect of perturbation on the hitting time of a quantum walk and the stationary distribution prepared by a quantum walk based algorithm. The perturbation comes from quantizing a transition matrix Q with perturbation E (errors). We bound the perturbed quantum walk hitting time from above by applying Szegedy's work and the perturbation bounds with Weyl's perturbation theorem on classical matrix. Based on an efficient quantum sample preparation approach invented in {\em speed-up via quantum sampling} and the pe…
In this paper, we consider a continuous-time quantum walk based search algorithm. We introduce equitable partition of the graph and perfect state transfer on it. By these two methods, we can calculate the success probability and the finding time of the search algorithm. In addition, we gave some examples of graphs that we can calculate the success probability and the finding time.
We mainly study exceptional configuration for coined quantum walk search. For searching on a two-dimensional grid by AKR algorithm, we find some new classes of exceptional configurations that cannot be found by the AKR algorithm effectively and the known diagonal configuration can be regarded as its special case. Meanwhile, we give two modified quantum walk models that can improve the success probability in the exceptional configurations by numerical simulation. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of generalized exceptional configuration and consider search by quantum walk on a cycle with Gr…
We consider stationary measures of the one-dimensional discrete-time quantum walks (QWs) with two chiralities, which is defined by a 2 times 2 unitary matrix U. In our previous paper [15], we proved that any uniform measure becomes the stationary measure of the QW by solving the corresponding eigenvalue problem. This paper reports that non-uniform measures are also stationary measures of the QW except U is diagonal. For diagonal matrices, we show that any stationary measure is uniform. Moreover, we prove that any uniform measure becomes a stationary measure for more general QWs not by solving …
In typical discrete-time quantum walk algorithms, one measures the position of the walker while ignoring its internal spin/coin state. Rather than neglecting the information in this internal state, we show that additionally measuring it doubles the success probability of many quantum spatial search algorithms. For example, this allows Grover's unstructured search problem to be solved with certainty, rather than with probability 1/2 if only the walker's position is measured, so the additional measurement yields a search algorithm that is twice as fast as without it, on average. Thus the interna…
This paper examines the stability of the quantum random walk search algorithm, when the walk coin is constructed by generalized Householder reflection and additional phase shift, against inaccuracies in the phases used to construct the coin. The optimization of the algorithm is done by numerical methods - Monte Carlo, neural networks, and supervised machine learning. The results of numerical simulations show that, with such a construction of the Householder reflection, the algorithm is more stable to inaccuracies in the specific values of these phases, as long as it is possible to control the …
Perfect state transfer between two marked vertices of a graph by means of discrete-time quantum walk is analyzed. We consider the quantum walk search algorithm with two marked vertices, sender and receiver. It is shown by explicit calculation that for the coined quantum walks on star graph and complete graph with self-loops perfect state transfer between the sender and receiver vertex is achieved for arbitrary number of vertices $N$ in $O(\sqrt{N})$ steps of the walk. Finally, we show that Szegedy's walk with queries on complete graph allows for state transfer with unit fidelity in the limit o…
In the typical spatial search problems solved by continuous-time quantum walk, changing the location of the marked vertices does not alter the search problem. In this paper, we consider search when this is no longer true. In particular, we analytically solve search on the "simplex of $K_M$ complete graphs" with all configurations of two marked vertices, two configurations of $M+1$ marked vertices, and two configurations of $2(M+1)$ marked vertices, showing that the location of the marked vertices can dramatically influence the required jumping rate of the quantum walk, such that using the wron…
There has been a very large body of research on searching a marked vertex on a graph based on quantum walks, and Grover's algorithm can be regarded as a quantum walk-based search algorithm on a special graph. However, the existing quantum walk-based search algorithms suffer severely from the soufflé problem which mainly means that the success probability of finding a marked vertex could shrink dramatically even to zero when the number of search steps is greater than the right one, thus heavily reducing the robustness and practicability of the algorithm. Surprisingly, while the soufflé problem …
An ideal quantum walk transitions from one vertex to another with perfect fidelity, but in physical systems, the particle may be hindered by potential energy barriers. Then the particle has some amplitude of tunneling through the barriers, and some amplitude of staying put. We investigate the algorithmic consequence of such barriers for the quantum walk formulation of Grover's algorithm. We prove that the failure amplitude must scale as $O(1/\sqrt{N})$ for search to retain its quantum $O(\sqrt{N})$ runtime; otherwise, it searches in classical $O(N)$ time. Thus searching larger "databases" requ…
Continuous-time quantum walks are natural tools for spatial search, where one searches for a marked vertex in a graph. Sometimes, the structure of the graph causes the walker to get trapped, such that the probability of finding the marked vertex is limited. We give an example with two linked cliques, proving that the captive probability can be liberated by increasing the weights of the links. This allows the search to succeed with probability 1 without increasing the energy scaling of the algorithm. Further increasing the weights, however, slows the runtime, so the optimal search requires weig…
Lackadaisical quantum walk(LQW) has been an efficient technique in searching a target state from a database which is distributed on a two-dimensional lattice. We numerically study the quantum search algorithm based on the lackadaisical quantum walk on one- and two-dimensions. It is observed that specific values of the self-loop weight at each vertex of the graph is responsible for such speedup of the algorithm. Searching for a target state on one-dimensional lattice with periodic boundary conditions is possible using lackadaisical quantum walk, which can find a target state with $\mathcal{O}(1…
We study the discrete-time quantum walk-based search for a marked vertex on a graph. By considering various structures in which not all vertices are equivalent, we investigate the relationship between the successful search probability and the position of the marked vertex, in particular its centrality. We find that the maximum value of the search probability does not necessarily increase as the marked vertex becomes more central and we investigate an interesting relationship between the frequency of the successful search probability and the centrality of the marked vertex.
The defining feature of memoryless quantum walks is that they operate on the vertex space of a graph, and therefore can be used to produce search algorithms with minimal memory. We present a memoryless walk that can find a unique marked vertex on a two-dimensional grid. Our walk is based on the construction proposed by Falk, which tessellates the grid with squares of size $2 \times 2$. Our walk uses minimal memory, $O(\sqrt{N \log N})$ applications of the walk operator, and outputs the marked vertex with vanishing error probability. To accomplish this, we apply a selfloop to the marked vertex …
Quantum walks are powerful tools for building quantum search algorithms or quantum sampling algorithms named the construction of quantum stationary state. However, the success probability of those algorithms are all far away from 1. Amplitude amplification is usually used to amplify success probability, but the soufflé problems follow. Only stop at the right step can we achieve a maximum success probability. Otherwise, as the number of steps increases, the success probability may decrease, which will cause troubles in practical application of the algorithm when the optimal number of steps is n…
Quantum walks are standard tools for searching graphs for marked vertices, and they often yield quadratic speedups over a classical random walk's hitting time. In some exceptional cases, however, the system only evolves by sign flips, staying in a uniform probability distribution for all time. We prove that the one-dimensional periodic lattice or cycle with any arrangement of marked vertices is such an exceptional configuration. Using this discovery, we construct a search problem where the quantum walk's random sampling yields an arbitrary speedup in query complexity over the classical random …
Quantum walks have been very successful in the development of search algorithms in quantum information, in particular in the development of spatial search algorithms. However, the construction of continuous-time quantum search algorithms in two-dimensional lattices has proved difficult, requiring additional degrees of freedom. Here, we demonstrate that continuous-time quantum walk search is possible in two-dimensions by changing the search topology to a graphene lattice, utilising the Dirac point in the energy spectrum. This is made possible by making a change to standard methods of marking a …
A randomly walking quantum particle searches in Grover's $Θ(\sqrt{N})$ iterations for a marked vertex on the complete graph of $N$ vertices by repeatedly querying an oracle that flips the amplitude at the marked vertex, scattering by a "coin" flip, and hopping. Physically, however, potential energy barriers can hinder the hop and cause the search to fail, even when the amplitude of not hopping decreases with $N$. We correct for these errors by interpreting the quantum walk search as an amplitude amplification algorithm and modifying the phases applied by the coin flip and oracle such that the …
A randomly walking quantum particle evolving by Schrödinger's equation searches for a unique marked vertex on the "simplex of complete graphs" in time $Θ(N^{3/4})$. In this paper, we give a weighted version of this graph that preserves vertex-transitivity, and we show that the time to search on it can be reduced to nearly $Θ(\sqrt{N})$. To prove this, we introduce two novel extensions to degenerate perturbation theory: an adjustment that distinguishes the weights of the edges, and a method to determine how precisely the jumping rate of the quantum walk must be chosen.
In a recent work by Novo et al. (Sci. Rep. 5, 13304, 2015), the invariant subspace method was applied to the study of continuous-time quantum walk (CTQW). The method helps to reduce a graph into a simpler version that allows more transparent analyses of the quantum walk model. In this work, we adopt the aforementioned method to investigate the optimality of a quantum walk search of a marked element on a complete multi-partite graph. We formulate the eigenbasis that would facilitate the transport between the two lowest energy eigenstates and demonstrate how to set the appropriate coupling facto…
The task of finding an entry in an unsorted list of $N$ elements famously takes $O(N)$ queries to an oracle for a classical computer and $O(\sqrt{N})$ queries for a quantum computer using Grover's algorithm. Reformulated as a spatial search problem, this corresponds to searching the complete graph, or all-to-all network, for a marked vertex by querying an oracle. In this tutorial, we derive how discrete- and continuous-time (classical) random walks and quantum walks solve this problem in a thorough and pedagogical manner, providing an accessible introduction to how random and quantum walks can…
Quantum walks have been useful for designing quantum algorithms that outperform their classical versions for a variety of search problems. Most of the papers, however, consider a search space containing a single marked element only. We show that if the search space contains more than one marked element, their placement may drastically affect the performance of the search. More specifically, we study search by quantum walks on general graphs and show a wide class of configurations of marked vertices, for which search by quantum walk needs $Ω(N)$ steps, that is, it has no speed-up over the class…
This paper examines the performance of spatial search where the Grover diffusion operator is replaced by continuous-time quantum walks on a class of interdependent networks. We prove that for a set of optimal quantum walk times and marked vertex phase shifts, a deterministic algorithm for structured spatial search is established that finds the marked vertex with 100% probability. This improves on the original spatial search algorithm on the same class of graphs, which we show can only amplify to 50% probability. Our method uses $\left\lceil\fracπ{2\sqrt{2}}\sqrt{N}\right\rceil$ marked vertex p…
In the typical model, a discrete-time coined quantum walk searching the 2D grid for a marked vertex achieves a success probability of $O(1/\log N)$ in $O(\sqrt{N \log N})$ steps, which with amplitude amplification yields an overall runtime of $O(\sqrt{N} \log N)$. We show that making the quantum walk lackadaisical or lazy by adding a self-loop of weight $4/N$ to each vertex speeds up the search, causing the success probability to reach a constant near $1$ in $O(\sqrt{N \log N})$ steps, thus yielding an $O(\sqrt{\log N})$ improvement over the typical, loopless algorithm. This improved runtime m…
A quantum particle evolving by Schrödinger's equation contains, from the kinetic energy of the particle, a term in its Hamiltonian proportional to Laplace's operator. In discrete space, this is replaced by the discrete or graph Laplacian, which gives rise to a continuous-time quantum walk. Besides this natural definition, some quantum walk algorithms instead use the adjacency matrix to effect the walk. While this is equivalent to the Laplacian for regular graphs, it is different for non-regular graphs, and is thus an inequivalent quantum walk. We algorithmically explore this distinction by ana…
We investigate a quantum spatial search problem on a fractal lattice. A recent study for the Sierpinski gasket and tetrahedron made a conjecture that the dynamics of the search on a fractal lattice is determined by spectral dimension. We tackle this problem for the Sierpinski carpet, and our simulation result supports the conjecture. We also propose a scaling hypothesis of oracle calls for the quantum amplitude amplification.
The lazy random walk, where the walker has some probability of staying put, is a useful tool in classical algorithms. We propose a quantum analogue, the lackadaisical quantum walk, where each vertex is given $l$ self-loops, and we investigate its effects on Grover's algorithm when formulated as search for a marked vertex on the complete graph of $N$ vertices. For the discrete-time quantum walk using the phase flip coin, adding a self-loop to each vertex boosts the success probability from 1/2 to 1. Additional self-loops, however, decrease the success probability. Using instead the Ambainis, Ke…
We consider the problem of searching a general $d$-dimensional lattice of $N$ vertices for a single marked item using a continuous-time quantum walk. We demand locality, but allow the walk to vary periodically on a small scale. By constructing lattice Hamiltonians exhibiting Dirac points in their dispersion relations and exploiting the linear behaviour near a Dirac point, we develop algorithms that solve the problem in a time of $O(\sqrt N)$ for $d>2$ and $O(\sqrt N \log N)$ in $d=2$. In particular, we show that such algorithms exist even for hypercubic lattices in any dimension. Unlike previo…
We consider an special dynamics of a quantum walk (QW) on a line. Initially, the walker localized at the origin of the line with arbitrary chirality, evolves to an asymptotic stationary state. In this stationary state a measurement is performed and the state resulting from this measurement is used to start a second QW evolution to achieve a second asymptotic stationary state. In previous works, we developed the thermodynamics associated with the entanglement between the coin and position degrees of freedom in the QW. Here we study the application of the first and second laws of thermodynamics …
Random walks are fundamental models of stochastic processes with applications in various fields including physics, biology, and computer science. We study classical and quantum random walks under the influence of stochastic resetting on arbitrary networks. Based on the mathematical formalism of quantum stochastic walks, we provide a framework of classical and quantum walks whose evolution is determined by graph Laplacians. We study the influence of quantum effects on the stationary and long-time average probability distribution by interpolating between the classical and quantum regime. We comp…
In this survey paper we give an intuitive treatment of the discrete time quantization of classical Markov chains. Grover search and the quantum walk based search algorithms of Ambainis, Szegedy and Magniez et al. will be stated as quantum analogues of classical search procedures. We present a rather detailed description of a somewhat simplified version of the MNRS algorithm. Finally, in the query complexity model, we show how quantum walks can be applied to the following search problems: Element Distinctness, Matrix Product Verification, Restricted Range Associativity, Triangle, and Group Comm…
The atom-optics kicked rotor can be used to prepare specific momentum distributions on a discrete basis set. We implement a continuous-time quantum walk and a quantum search protocol in this momentum basis. In particular we propose ways to identify a specific marked state from the final momentum distribution after the walker's evolution. Our protocol is guided by current experimental possibilities making it accessible to experimentally implemented quantum walks with Bose-Einstein condensates.
