Quantum walk on the Bloch sphere

Abstract

A scheme for implementing the discrete-time quantum walk on the Bloch sphere is proposed, which is closely related to the SU(2) group. A spin cluster serves as the walker, while its location on the Bloch sphere is described by the spin coherent state. An additional spin that interacts with the spin cluster plays the role of a coin, whose state determines the rotation of the spin cluster. The Wigner function is calculated to visualize the movement of the walker on the Bloch sphere, with which the probability distribution and the standard deviation are also achieved. The quadratic enhancement of variance for the quantum walk on the Bloch sphere is confirmed. Compared to the ideal quantum walk on a circle, the walker's states on the Bloch sphere are non-orthogonal, whose drawbacks can be eliminated by increasing the number of spins in the spin cluster.