One-dimensional quantum walks subject to next-nearest-neighbour hopping decoherence

Abstract

It is believed that the decoherence will lead to a crossover from quantum to classical for the diffusive behaviour of discrete quantum walk in the long time limit. However, a few systems with sub-ballistic diffusive behaviours have been found in some non-unitary quantum walks. In this paper, we study the one-dimensional discrete quantum walks subject to a short-range hopping decoherence, i.e. with a probability the walker could hop to next-nearest-neighbour lattices unilaterally and/or bilaterally in one time step. We find that, when the decoherence effects only come from the bilateral hopping operation, the diffusive behaviours of quantum walks are sub-ballistic and the distributions of position exhibit three peaks. These results are quite different from those of the previous non-unitary quantum walks. Our results could be used to improve the algorithmic properties of quantum walk due to its faster diffusive speed and more uniform spreading.