Second-order topological insulator in a coinless discrete-time quantum walk

Abstract

Higher-order topological insulators not only exhibit exotic bulk-boundary correspondence principle, but also have an important application in quantum computing. However, they have never been achieved in quantum walk. In this paper, we construct a two-dimensional coinless discrete-time quantum walk to simulate second-order topological insulator with zero-dimensional corner states. We show that both of the corner and edge states can be observed through the probability distribution of the walker after multi-step discrete-time quantum walks. Furthermore, we demonstrate the robustness of the topological corner states by introducing the static disorder. Finally, we propose a possible experimental implementation to realize this discrete-time quantum walk in a three-dimensional integrated photonic circuits. Our work offers a new route to explore exotic higher-order topological matters using discrete-time quantum walks.