Perfect state transfer is poly-time
We show that deciding whether a graph admits perfect state transfer can be done in polynomial time with respect to the size of the graph on a classical computer.
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arXiv subjects
Chris Godsil
Publications and source records attributed to Chris Godsil.
Quantum walks do not like bridges
We consider graphs with two cut vertices joined by a path with one or two edges, and prove that there can be no quantum perfect state transfer between these vertices, unless the graph has no other vertex. We achieve this result by applying the 1-sum lemma for the characteristic polynomial of graphs, the neutrino identities that relate entries of eigenprojectors and eigenvalues, and variational principles for eigenvalues (Cauchy interlacing, Weyl inequalities and Wielandt minimax principle). We see our result as an intermediate step to broaden the understanding of how connectivity plays a key role in quantum walks, and as further evidence of the conjecture that no tree on four or more vertices admits state transfer. We conclude with some open problems.
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Graph covers with two new eigenvalues
A certain signed adjacency matrix of the hypercube, which Hao Huang used last year to resolve the sensitivity conjecture, is closely related to the unique, 4-cycle free, 2-fold cover of the hypercube. We develop a framework in which this connection is a natural first example of the relationship between group labeled adjacency matrices with few eigenvalues, and combinatorially interesting covering graphs. In particular, we define a two-eigenvalue cover to be a covering graph whose adjacency spectra differs (as a multiset) from that of the graph it covers by exactly two eigenvalues. We show that walk regularity of a graph implies walk regularity of any abelian two-eigenvalue cover. We also give a spectral characterization for when a cyclic two-eigenvalue cover of a strongly-regular graph is distance regular.
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Pair State Transfer
Let $L$ denote the Laplacian matrix of a graph $G$. We study continuous quantum walks on $G$ defined by the transition matrix $U(t)=\exp\left(itL\right)$. The initial state is of the pair state form, $e_a-e_b$ with $a,b$ being any two vertices of $G$. We provide two ways to construct infinite families of graphs that have perfect pair transfer. We study a "transitivity" phenomenon which cannot occur in vertex state transfer. We characterize perfect pair state transfer on paths and cycles. We also study the case when quantum walks are generated by the unsigned Laplacians of underlying graphs and the initial states are of the plus state form, $e_a+e_b$. When the underlying graphs are bipartite, plus state transfer is equivalent to pair state transfer.
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Perfect State Transfer on Oriented Graphs
Quantum walks on undirected graphs have been studied using symmetric matrices, such as the adjacency or Laplacian matrix, and many results about perfect state transfer are known. We extend some of those results to oriented graphs. We also study the phenomena, unique to oriented graphs, of multiple state transfer, where there is a set of vertices such that perfect state transfer occurs between every pair in that set. We give a characterization of multiple state transfer, and a new example of a graph where it occurs.
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Fundamentals of fractional revival in graphs
We develop a general spectral framework to analyze quantum fractional revival in quantum spin networks. In particular, we introduce generalizations of the notions of cospectral and strongly cospectral vertices to arbitrary subsets of vertices, and give various examples. This work resolves two open questions of Chan et.~al. ["Quantum Fractional Revival on graphs". Discrete Applied Math, 269:86-98, 2019.]
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Algebras, graphs and thetas
We extend the clique-coclique inequality, previously known to hold for graphs in association schemes and vertex-transitive graphs, to graphs in homogeneous coherent configurations and 1-walk regular graphs. We further generalize it to a stronger inequality involving the Lovász theta number of such graphs, and some theta variants, including characterizations of the equality.
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Diagonal entries of the average mixing matrix
We study the diagonal entries of the average mixing matrix of continuous quantum walks. The average mixing matrix is a graph invariant; it is the sum of the Schur squares of spectral idempotents of the Hamiltonian. It is non-negative, doubly stochastic and positive semi-definite. We investigate the diagonal entries of this matrix. We study the graphs for which the trace of the average mixing matrix is maximum or minimum and we classify those which are maximum. We give two constructions of graphs whose average mixing matrices have constant diagonal.
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Discrete-Time Quantum Walks and Graph Structures
We formulate three current models of discrete-time quantum walks in a combinatorial way. These walks are shown to be closely related to rotation systems and 1-factorizations of graphs. For two of the models, we compute the traces and total entropies of the average mixing matrices for some cubic graphs. The trace captures how likely a quantum walk is to revisit the state it started with, and the total entropy measures how close the limiting distribution is to uniform. Our numerical results indicate three relations between quantum walks and graph structures: for the first model, rotation systems with higher genera give lower traces and higher entropies, and for the second model, the symmetric 1-factorizations always give the highest trace.
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Graph Homomorphisms via Vector Colorings
In this paper we study the existence of homomorphisms $G\to H$ using semidefinite programming. Specifically, we use the vector chromatic number of a graph, defined as the smallest real number $t \ge 2$ for which there exists an assignment of unit vectors $i\mapsto p_i$ to its vertices such that $\langle p_i, p_j\rangle\le -1/(t-1),$ when $i\sim j$. Our approach allows to reprove, without using the Erdős-Ko-Rado Theorem, that for $n>2r$ the Kneser graph $K_{n:r}$ and the $q$-Kneser graph $qK_{n:r}$ are cores, and furthermore, that for $n/r = n'/r'$ there exists a homomorphism $K_{n:r}\to K_{n':r'}$ if and only if $n$ divides $n'$. In terms of new applications, we show that the even-weight component of the distance $k$-graph of the $n$-cube $H_{n,k}$ is a core and also, that non-bipartite Taylor graphs are cores. Additionally, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of homomorphisms $H_{n,k}\to H_{n',k'}$ when $n/k = n'/k'$. Lastly, we show that if a 2-walk-regular graph (which is non-bipartite and not complete multipartite) has a unique optimal vector coloring, it is a core. Based on this sufficient condition we conducted a computational study on Ted Spence's list of strongly regular graphs and found that at least 84% are cores.
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Pretty Good State Transfer in Qubit Chains - The Heisenberg Hamiltonian
Pretty good state transfer in networks of qubits occurs when a continuous-time quantum walk allows the transmission of a qubit state from one node of the network to another, with fidelity arbitrarily close to 1. We prove that in a Heisenberg chain with n qubits there is pretty good state transfer between the nodes at the j-th and (n-j+1)-th position if n is a power of 2. Moreover, this condition is also necessary for j=1. We obtain this result by applying a theorem due to Kronecker about Diophantine approximations, together with techniques from algebraic graph theory.
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Perfect state transfer in products and covers of graphs
A continuous-time quantum walk on a graph $X$ is represented by the complex matrix $\exp (-\mathrm{i} t A)$, where $A$ is the adjacency matrix of $X$ and $t$ is a non-negative time. If the graph models a network of interacting qubits, transfer of state among such qubits throughout time can be formalized as the action of the continuous-time quantum walk operator in the characteristic vectors of the vertices. Here we are concerned with the problem of determining which graphs admit a perfect transfer of state. More specifically, we will study graphs whose adjacency matrix is a sum of tensor products of $01$-matrices, focusing on the case where a graph is the tensor product of two other graphs. As a result, we will construct many new examples of perfect state transfer.
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An Introduction to the Moebius Function
This is an introduction to the Möbius function of a poset. The chief novelty is in the exposition. We show how order-preserving maps from one poset to another can be used to relate their Möbius functions. We derive the basic results on the Möbius function, applying them in particular to geometric lattices.
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Using the existence of t-designs to prove Erdős-Ko-Rado
In 1984, Wilson proved the Erdős-Ko-Rado theorem for $t$-intersecting families of $k$-subsets of an $n$-set: he showed that if $n\ge(t+1)(k-t+1)$ and $\mathcal{F}$ is a family of $k$-subsets of an $n$-set such that any two members of $\mathcal{F}$ have at least $t$ elements in common, then $|\mathcal{F}|\le\binom{n-t}{k-t}$. His proof made essential use of a matrix whose origin is not obvious. In this paper we show that this matrix can be derived, in a sense, as a projection of $t$-$(n,k,1)$ design.
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Vector Coloring the Categorical Product of Graphs
A vector $t$-coloring of a graph is an assignment of real vectors $p_1, \ldots, p_n$ to its vertices such that $p_i^Tp_i = t-1$ for all $i=1, \ldots, n$ and $p_i^Tp_j \le -1$ whenever $i$ and $j$ are adjacent. The vector chromatic number of $G$ is the smallest real number $t \ge 1$ for which a vector $t$-coloring of $G$ exists. For a graph $H$ and a vector $t$-coloring $p_1,\ldots,p_n$ of a graph $G$, the assignment $(i,\ell) \mapsto p_i$ is a vector $t$-coloring of the categorical product $G \times H$. It follows that the vector chromatic number of $G \times H$ is at most the minimum of the vector chromatic numbers of the factors. We prove that equality always holds, constituting a vector coloring analog of the famous Hedetniemi Conjecture from graph coloring. Furthermore, we prove a necessary and sufficient condition for when all of the optimal vector colorings of the product can be expressed in terms of the optimal vector colorings of the factors. The vector chromatic number is closely related to the well-known Lovász theta function, and both of these parameters admit formulations as semidefinite programs. This connection to semidefinite programming is crucial to our work and the tools and techniques we develop could likely be of interest to others in this field.
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Sedentary quantum walks
Let $X$ be a graph with adjacency matrix $A$. The \textsl{continuous quantum walk} on $X$ is determined by the unitary matrices $U(t)=\exp(itA)$. If $X$ is the complete graph $K_n$ and $a\in V(X)$, then \[1-|U(t)_{a,a}|\le2/n. \] In a sense, this means that a quantum walk on a complete graph stay home with high probability. In this paper we consider quantum walks on cones over an $\ell$-regular graph on $n$ vertices. We prove that if $\ell^2/n\to\infty$ as $n$ increases, than a quantum walk that starts on the apex of the cone will remain on it with probability tending to $1$ as $n$ increases. On the other hand, if $\ell\le2$ we prove that there is a time $t$ such that local uniform mixing occurs, i.e., all vertices are equally likely. We investigate when a quantum walk on strongly regular graph has a high probability of "staying at home", producing large families of examples with the stay-at-home property where the valency is small compared to the number of vertices.
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Real State Transfer
A continuous quantum walk on a graph $X$ with adjacency matrix $A$ is specified by the 1-parameter family of unitary matrices $U(t)=\exp(itA)$. These matrices act on the state space of a quantum system, the states of which we may represent by density matrices, positive semidefinite matrices with rows and columns indexed by $V(X)$ and with trace $1$. The square of the absolute values of the entries of a column of $U(t)$ define a probability density on $V(X)$, and it is precisely these densities that predict the outcomes of measurements. There are two special cases of physical interest: when the column density is supported on a vertex, and when it is uniform. In the first case we have perfect state transfer; in the second, uniform mixing. There are many results concerning state transfer and uniform mixing. In this paper we show that these results on perfect state transfer hold largely because at the time it occurs, the density matrix is real. We also show that the results on uniform mixing obtained so far hold because the entries of the density matrix are algebraic numbers. As a consequence of these we derive strong restrictions on the occurence of uniform mixing on bipartite graphs and on oriented graphs.
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State transfer in strongly regular graphs with an edge perturbation
Quantum walks, an important tool in quantum computing, have been very successfully investigated using techniques in algebraic graph theory. We are motivated by the study of state transfer in continuous-time quantum walks, which is understood to be a rare and interesting phenomenon. We consider a perturbation on an edge $uv$ of a graph where we add a weight $β$ to the edge and a loop of weight $γ$ to each of $u$ and $v$. We characterize when for this perturbation results in strongly cospectral vertices $u$ and $v$. Applying this to strongly regular graphs, we give infinite families of strongly regular graphs where some perturbation results in perfect state transfer. Further, we show that, for every strongly regular graph, there is some perturbation which results in pretty good state transfer. We also show for any strongly regular graph $X$ and edge $e \in E(X)$, that $ϕ(X\setminus e)$ does not depend on the choice of $e$.
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