Quantum transport on multilayer generalized scale-free networks

Abstract

Abstract We study single-particle quantum transport on multilayer generalized scale-free networks using the continuous-time quantum walk model. Our focus is directed at the average return probability and its long-time average value as measures for the transport efficiency. In the continuous-time model these quantities are completely determined by all the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the connectivity matrix. For all multilayer networks a nontrivial interplay between good spreading and localization effects is observed. The spreading is enhanced by increasing the number of layers L or the power-law exponent γ of the degree distribution. For our choice of the parameters, namely L (1 ≤ L ≤ 50) or γ (1 ≤ γ ≤ 4), the quantum efficiency is increased by at least one order of magnitude. The topological transition between networks without loops, which corresponds to a single scale-free network layer (L = 1), and networks with loops (L = 2) is the most impactful. Another important change occurs when L gets higher than the average diameter d of the layers, namely a new scaling behavior for random walks and lower fluctuations around the long-time average value for quantum walks. The quantum transport is more sensitive to changes of the minimum allowed degree, K min, than to the maximum allowed degree, K max. The same quantum efficiency is found by varying at least one of the parameters: L, γ, K min, or K max, although the network’s topology is different. The quantum efficiency of all multilayer scale-free networks shows a universal behavior for any size of the layers, more precise, is inversely proportional to the number of layers.