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Phys. Rev. A 71, 022307 (2005) [7 pages]

Complementarity and quantum walks

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Viv Kendon1,2,* and Barry C. Sanders3,4
1QOLS, Optics Section, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London, SW7 2BW, United Kingdom
2School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
3Institute for Quantum Information Science, University of Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada
4Centre for Quantum Computer Technology, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia

Received 7 April 2004; published 14 February 2005

We show that quantum walks interpolate between a coherent “wave walk” and a random walk depending on how strongly the walker’s coin state is measured; i.e., the quantum walk exhibits the quintessentially quantum property of complementarity, which is manifested as a tradeoff between knowledge of which path the walker takes vs the sharpness of the interference pattern. A physical implementation of a quantum walk (the quantum quincunx) should thus have an identifiable walker and the capacity to demonstrate the interpolation between wave walk and random walk depending on the strength of measurement.

© 2005 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.71.022307
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.71.022307
PACS:
03.67.Lx, 03.65.Ta

*Electronic address: V.Kendon@leeds.ac.uk

 
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